RAJSHAHI, June 27 (BSS): Farmers were gradually becoming habituated to irrigating their cropping fields with canal water side by side with deep tube-wells in Barind area for the last couple of years.
"We are getting water for irrigating our cropland round the year from Sharmangla canal in Godagari upazila of the district," said Aminul Islam, a farmer of a nearby village.
He is now happy with canal water based irrigation in the current Aus transplantation season.
Nazrul Islam, 45, another farmer of Rajabari village, said canal water contains humus which is important for soil fertility as well as boosting crop yield.
"We are so much happy with getting chances of irrigation using surface water round the year," he added.
Like them, canal water irrigation has made thousands of farmers happy in the high Barind area as their dependence on deep tubewells and rainfall has been reduced to some extent.
"In phases, we are re-excavating more than 38.85 km derelict canals and constructing 16 submerged wares for creating surface water reservoir," said Shamsul Huda, Superintending Engineer of the Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA).
Process of commissioning of around 0.12 million metres underground upvc pipelines is progressing fast to enhance the irrigation efficiency.
At least 96 power-driven low lift pumps were set up for using the conserved water in the re-excavated canals for irrigation purposes.
Highlighting salient features of the project, Mr Huda said BMDA has been implementing the canal water improvement scheme aims at lessening the gradually mounting pressure on groundwater for irrigation purposes.
The three-year project titled "Extension of Irrigation in Barind Area through Conservation of Water in Canal" is being implemented in eight upazilas of Rajshahi, Naogaon and Chapainawabganj districts at a cost of around Tk 1.16 million.
The state-owned derelict canals are being re-excavated to increase the number of reservoirs for drawing rain water and using it for various purposes, especially for irrigation and that is very important for the region in terms of water-stress condition.
The work on establishing requisite number of pumps, pontoons and pipelines in different points of Padma, Mohananda and Atrai rivers is going on for transferring the river-water to the canals and further to the farming fields.
Ten 10 solar panels were installed to operate the pumps for irrigation.
Project Director Huda told the news agency that increasing the capacity of surface water in dry area has become essential to reduce dependency on the ground water.
Adverse impacts of climate change have been posing a serious threat to the overall public health especially relating to water and sanitation in the region, he added.
Stressing the need for an environment-friendly irrigation system instead of indiscriminate use of groundwater resources for irrigation purposes, he said there is no alternative but to include the Barind area in any climate resilient fund.
