World Bank to fund rehabilitation of water sector

The World Bank is considering giving Pakistan a loan specifically to strengthen its irrigation network and water-storage capacity as part of a scaled-up programme for the water sector, according to an a Pakistani official. "The minister for water and power was told during a visit by a World Bank mission about a month ago that the bank wants to come up with a scaled-up programme for the water sector," Zarar Aslam, a joint secretary in the water and power ministry, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday. Aslam said he was unsure as to the exact sum the bank was expected to disburse for the rehabilitation of the irrigation network, but an earlier report in Dawn, a leading English broadsheet, quoted a senior finance ministry official as saying the World Bank had agreed to offer US $1 billion over a three-year period for a much-needed overhaul of a system regarded by experts as out-dated and inefficient. "If we talk only of system improvement, that alone would require much, much more than just $1 billion. It's a 200-year-old network, after all," Aslam stressed. In the meeting between ministry officials and the bank's delegation, the prospects of modernising the entire system had been discussed, Zarar said. "But the situation is still fluid: all we have right now is a letter from the bank stating that they are interested in upgrading the programme for the water sector," he added. Pakistan's vast irrigation system, comprising three main reservoirs, 19 dams, 43 main canals and a conveyance length of 57,000 km, has one of the oldest canal systems in the world. In 2001, a former secretary of the water and power ministry said his organisation had estimated that 35 million acre-feet of water was lost to ground seepage annually. Seepage, waterlogging and salinity have also dogged the irrigation sector, leading to the institution of a National Drainage Project (NDP) about six years ago in the hope of eventually leading to an integrated irrigation and drainage system. "There are certain areas where waterlogging has caused major problems and highlighted the fact that a proper drainage network is required," Dr Waqar Jahangir, the acting director of the International Irrigation Management Institute, told IRIN from the eastern city of Lahore. There were other areas where salinity was also a problem, and measures to turn the situation around were needed, he added. In 1994, after the World Bank concluded that privatisation of the national irrigation system was the way forward, attempts were made to encourage farmers to manage watercourses for themselves, while federal and provincial authorities retain control of the irrigation system's main arteries. The "on-farm water management" project, supported by the World Bank and part of the NDP, tried to hand over water management to farmers organisations. However, the NDP's viability has been questioned at times, most notably by the British NGO Action Aid in 2001. Quoting surveys it had conducted on the impact of the project, Action Aid said most farmers did not have the expertise, time or funds to manage watercourses properly, and that the potential for monopolisation by wealthy farmers was high.