Water starts flowing in newly-built Baizai Canal

PESHAWAR: Water has started flowing in the newly built Baizai Canal that would eventually cost Rs3.4 billion and irrigate 25,000 acres of land in Mardan district.
This has brought smile on the faces of farmers who would now be able to irrigate their rain-fed land and grow more crops with better yield. “We released water in the canal on May 31. We are testing the system and everything is working smoothly,” Sajjad Ahmed, the project director of the Baizai Canal, told The News.
He pointed out that the irrigation department was ready to release water in the Baizai Canal earlier, but the provincial government delayed it until after the local bodies’ elections on May 30 so that it isn’t blamed for trying to influence the voters.
Sajjad Ahmed said 80 percent of the work on the Baizai Canal system has been completed. “Work on five smaller canals upstream is incomplete, but we released the water in the canal earlier to benefit the farmers and enable them to irrigate their land in the summer,” he added.
The completion of the Baizai Canal project has been delayed for more than two years. It was scheduled to be completed in June 2013, but a host of factors caused the delay. Three construction firms got a share of the project costing Rs850 million each, but irrigation department officials said one of them, Karkun, has been unable to complete its part of the work in accordance with the projected period. The irrigation department is expected to review the situation as it is keen to complete the project as soon as possible and hire staff for operating the canal by July 2016.
The project directorate for the Baizai Canal would function until 2016 before handing over the canal to the operations wing of the irrigation department. Normally, the project directorate doesn’t operate canals but an exception was made in case of the Baizai Canal to start delivering its benefits to the farmers.
The canal was approved by the then Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti, who belonged to Mardan and ensured that the project received the required funds in time. His father Mohammad Azam Hoti, who died recently, took personal interest in the project and oversaw the construction of the canal.
Initially, 20,000 acres of barani land in the Sharqi Baizai area of Mardan’s Katlang tehsil was to be irrigated by the canal, but the project was later reviewed and expanded to irrigate another 5,000 acres of land.
Sajjad Ahmed, who has overseen the execution of the Baizai Canal and was brought back to head the project to accelerate the work, said the main canal is 99 percent ready. He said the canal outlets were also ready while work on five smaller canals is underway. “Farmers would need to build water courses to take water from the canal to their lands,” he added.
Provincial irrigation minister Mahmood Khan and secretary irrigation Mohammad Naeem Khan along with senior officials of the department are expected to pay a visit to Malakand and Mardan districts today to see the progress on the work on Baizai Canal and watch the water flowing in it.