20000112

Desilting campaign

in Sindh

from today

ISLAMABAD: National desilting campaign of canals and water courses in Punjab and NWFP is undergoing rapidly while the campaign in Sindh will be launched from January 12.

The campaign will continue in Sindh for 20 days with the help of 10,000 Army jawans, farmers, volunteers and agricultural and irrigation staff of the province.

The total length of water channels in the province is 12,000 miles out of which the length of small channels and water courses is 8,049 miles.

This year the government has planned to undertake the desilting of 4,003 miles of small channels and water courses which is about 50 percent of the total length of the channels.

For the desilting of 2,528 miles channels the desilting equipment of the department of agriculture and irrigation will be used while desilting of 1,475 miles of the channels will be carried out with the help of Army Jawans and local farmers on self-help basis.

It may be noted that this time the campaign has been launched with the active participation of Army, while in the past the campaign had been carried out only by the irrigation department of the provinces. Pak Army also monitoring and supervising to make the campaign a success.

The participation of the Army will also reduce the cost of the desilting campaign to 50 percent which was earlier estimated to be more than Rs 132 million.ÑAPP