BADC expects 0.13m addl crops yearly in Chalan Beel

FE Team | Published: April 02, 2022 21:31:45

RAJSHAHI, Apr 02 (BSS): Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) has hoped to produce around 0.13 million (1.34 lakh) tonnes additional crops from 53,400 hectares of Chalan Beel land every year using surface water irrigation.
The corporation has been implementing a five-year project on Pabna-Natore-Sirajganj district irrigation development through surface water to yield the additional crops.
The project is being implemented in 25 upazilas of the three districts at a cost of around Taka 5.60 billion (560.53 crore) since July 2019 last.
Various infrastructures development works including canal and solar-power driven dug-well re-excavation, irrigation infrastructure and underground canal construction are under the project, BADC in its project detail said.
"We have set a target of re-excavating a 480-kilometer canal, excavating 300 solar-power driven dug-wells and installing 600 low lift pumps, including construction of underground irrigation canals to attain our additional crop yield projection," said Mahmud Hasan Khan, director of the project.
Two valley irrigation systems will be established for vegetable, fruit and spice crops besides construction of 222 big, medium and small irrigation structures and 10-kilometer water sewerage infrastructures to facilitate watering on the land, he said.
Under the project, underground irrigation canals will be constructed and expanded for 700 old deep-tube-wells and 150 other solar-power driven low lift pumps.
Five fruit harvest and storage centres will be constructed for providing power connection to 615 irrigation machines.
Khan said, "The surface water-based modern facilities have already been ensured for 3,200 hectares of land yielding 8,000 tonnes of additional crops".
Many of the single-cropping lands have turned into double and triple cropping ones for removing water-logging through re-excavation of the canals in the beel area, he added.
More than 100 low-lift pumps were installed for using the conserved water in the re-excavated canals for irrigation purposes, paving the way of irrigating the barren lands, contributing a lot to reducing the gradually mounting pressure on underground water.
Khan said that they have re-excavated 248-kilometer canals so far, creating the ability of extending low-cost irrigation to the farming fields from the water reservoir.
He also said that they are making underground irrigation canals to limit misuse of water.
Scopes have also been generated for fish and duck farming by dint of the canal re-excavation improving the socio-economic conditions of people living in the neighbourhoods.