Home ›› 28 Apr 2022 ›› Nation
Eight more canals were re-excavated in Barind area of Rajshahi aimed at reducing the gradually mounting pressure on underground water through promoting surface water irrigation.
Jahangir Khan, Coordinator of the Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) Project, said the venture has created scopes of saving around 24.20 lakh litres of underground water in terms of irrigation use, while 18.43 lakh litres for other household and livestock purposes. The IWRM project is being implemented in drought-affected 39 Union Parishads and three Pourasavas in Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj, and Naogaon districts since 2015.
“We have brought around 4.78-kilometre of canals which were derelict and unfit for use under re-excavation in eight upazilas of Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj, and Naogaon districts,” said Khan.
Around 24,200 people, including 12,544 women and 2,586 ethnic minorities, are being benefited from the canals. The beneficiaries are using the canal water to irrigate 350 hectares of farming fields of wheat, mustard, pulse, and other rabi crops as supplementary irrigation.
DASCOH Foundation and the Swiss Red Cross are jointly implementing the project supported by Switzerland with the main target being protecting crops from any drought-like situation. Marginalised farmers, including ethnic minority ones, are seen deriving benefits of the re-excavated canals for irrigation purposes in Barind areas for the last couple of years.
Farmers were gradually becoming accustomed to irrigating their cropping fields with canal water in the water-stressed Barind area, contributing a lot towards boosting crop production.
“We are getting water for irrigating our croplands round the year from the canal at Paharpur village in Godagari upazila of Rajshahi,” said Ruhul Amin, 53, a farmer of the same village.
Expressing his happiness over the canal water-based irrigation in the current summer vegetable season Amin said canal water contains humus which is important for soil fertility as well as boosting crop yield.
“We are so happy with getting chances of irrigation using surface water round the year,” Bishal Kisku Mormu, 48, another farmer of Chorkhor village in Tanore Upazila, said.
Alivia Saren, 39, a resident of Veempara village in the same upazila, had brought three bighas of land under wheat farming by using the canal water irrigation last season and got a satisfactory yield of the cash crop.
Like them, canal water irrigation has made thousands of farmers happy in the high Barind area as their dependence on deep tube wells and rainfall has been reduced to some extent.
Ataur Rahman, Chairman of Badhair Union Parishad, said canal water irrigation has been contributing to Transplanted Aman (T-Aman) paddy and other seasonal crops in the high Barind tract by lessening the gradually mounting pressure on underground water.
