An irrigation project that stores and uses surface water in greater Rangpur is letting farmers grow an extra 139,064 tonnes of aman paddy a year, worth about Tk 418 crore, officials of the Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA) told BSS.
The problem was an old one: dead canals and long waterlogging kept a great deal of land from a proper aman crop. BMDA this year completed the five-year, Tk 288 crore project to expand irrigation in greater Rangpur through the best use of surface water and rainwater conservation (EIR). It re-excavated 230 kilometres of 35 nearly dead canals, 10 beels and 88 ponds.
To lift the water it installed 30 solar-powered and 183 electric low-lift pumps and 50 solar-powered dug wells, and built 16 footbridges and 9 cross-dams. That brought 13,405 hectares under irrigation or supplementary irrigation, producing an extra 123,152 tonnes of aman a year.
Digging the canals and water bodies freed another 1,000 hectares from partial waterlogging, adding 5,000 tonnes of paddy a year. At Ijlamari Char beel, Miar Char beel and Sabujpara beel in Rowmari, Kurigram, 1,122 metres of buried PVC pipe freed 1,250 hectares from permanent waterlogging for the first time; farmers there now grow three crops a year, with 10,912 tonnes more aman.
Md Habibur Rahman Khan, BMDA's outgoing superintending engineer, said the project brought a total of 15,655 hectares under irrigation or supplementary irrigation and had transformed farming by raising yields. In all, 33,328 farm families in 35 upazilas benefit.
Sarwar Alam of Fata village in Kaunia told BSS that re-digging the Khora canal freed more than 600 acres; for the first time in 40 years he is growing aman on his seven acres for a third year running, and will plant potato and then boro after the harvest. Nizam Uddin of Manurchhara in Pirgachha said re-digging the Alaikumari and Jhinia canals freed about 8,500 hectares from four decades of waterlogging. Mashiur Rahman of Shankarpur in Badarganj said re-digging the Mora Teesta brought the flow back and freed 1,100 hectares.
For farmers the point is simple: rainwater held in canals and beels and lifted by solar and low-lift pumps is making three crops a year possible on the same land.
Photo: Power Division, Government of Bangladesh / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: BSS
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