Farmers in Pabna expect better boro harvest than earlier years and suitable price for their crops as Pabna Irrigation and Rural Development project reduces their difficulty over irrigation costs this year.
Uninterrupted and low-cost irrigation under the project becomes the beacon of hope for the farmers in the northern district.
The irrigation cost in Pabna is 10-12 times lower than other parts of the country as they are using river water directly to irrigate lands under the project, farmers revealed.
For per 33 decimal of lands, a farmer in the project area needs to pay only Tk 180 for the boro season as against the estimated cost of Tk 2,000 for using power-run water-lifter or tube-wells, project officials and farmers said.
Korban Ali, a farmer of village Mahmudpur, told the news agency that they were not anxious about irrigation. 'We are using river water and there is sufficient water in the rice field,' he added.
The district Water Development Board said it had undertaken the project in 1991 in nine upazilas of Pabna, two of Sirajganj and one upazila of Natore.
The Tk 3.86 billion project was supposed to irrigate 18,680 hectares of land, he informed the agency.
A 157 kilometres dam was constructed to keep 1,84,534 hectares of land flood-free for this purpose.
The irrigation water of River Hurasagar was primarily diverted to three prime canals that again had 19 sub-canals. Water from these sub-canals was supplied to the cultivated land through 15 tributaries.
Previously the total system had some problems, which caused huge loss to farmers each year.
But, in the current season the board had repaired the water-flow system, which is proving to be very farmer-friendly.
A farmer of village Sagardaria, Monirul Islam Moni, said they were happy as they could irrigate lands at low cost.
Another farmer of village Mahmudpur, Abdul
Aziz said, 'The land fertility has increased due to the use of river water in
irrigation.'
Deputy chief executive officer of Pabna WDB Zahid Hossain said these lands were 'one crop land' in the past, but the crop density has increased each year.
Farmers were expecting 56,000 tonnes of rice this year when the production would range between 25,000 to 30,000 tonnes in the past, he stated.
Read the original story on the daily New Age
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