Officials concerned said insufficient budgetary allocation from the government and less then agreed financial contribution from the farmers were the reasons behind lack of timely maintenance of the irrigation systems running under the joint management of the government and local consumer groups. [break]
“We are seeing problems in irrigation system due to meager budget allocation from the government and low commitment from concerned farmers for the upkeep of the canal structures,” said Uttam Timilsina, deputy director general of Department of Irrigation (DoI).
Technicians say each irrigation system needs at least Rs 1,000 per hectare command area for maintenance. The government is allocating just Rs 500 per hectare.
“Maintenance works of irrigation systems have been affected as the government´s priority is more on building new systems,” Timilsina added.
Though maintenance works are conducted every year, they are focused on upper parts of the canal system, leaving the lower parts of the system neglected every year due to budget crunch.
Because of late maintenance of Kamala Irrigation and Hardinath Irrigation systems, three key paddy producing districts - Dhanusha, Saptari and Siraha - reported low plantation this season.
Officials said regular maintenance cost for the big irrigation systems goes as high as to Rs 500 million a year. However, the government had allocated only Rs 180 million for the purpose in 2009/10, against the demand of Rs 350 million. DoI has demanded Rs 500 million for the maintenance of canal systems for 2010/11.
“We are facing more problems in lift irrigation systems such as Narayani Lift irrigation, Koshi Pump Irrigation and Marchwar Lift Irrigation as their cost of operation is high and they require frequent maintenance,” Timilsina said.
As per the National Water Planning, the government has set a target of collecting 45 percent of the total maintenance cost from the farmers by 2017 and 65 percent by 2027.
“At present, we are collecting only 2 percent of the total maintenance cost from farmers. We won´t be able to meet the target at this pace,” Timilsina said.
Each irrigation system has an average annual electricity bill of Rs 10 million.
Under the existing provision, consumers have to pay up to Rs 300 per hectare, depending upon the productivity of the farm, as irrigation service charge. However, total collections from customers have been far lower.
“Most of the defaulters are big farmers, who are benefiting the most from the irrigation system,” Timilisna added.
The government collected Rs 11.96 million as service charge from consumers committees of 32 irrigation systems in 2008/09, down from Rs 14.37 million collected in 2007/08.
Big irrigation systems across the country have total command areas of over 327,000 hectares. Only about 1.1 million hectares of the total of about three million hectares of arable land have irrigation facility.
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