9th Joint Monitoring Meeting on PISIP-SIAP

The election of Farmer Organizations in Lower Chenab Canal (West) Circle as well as Chairmen of Lower Chenab Canal (East) and Bahawalnagar Area Water Boards (AWB) will be held during the month of October under the aegis of Punjab Irrigation & Drainage Authority (PIDA).

This was stated by Managing Director PIDA Khalid Masood Ch. while presiding over the 9^th joint monitoring meeting of Punjab Irrigation System Improvement Project (PISIP) in the committee room of Irrigation Department. The meeting was attended by GM (TM) PIDA Ch. Bashir Zahid, GM (Operation) Khalid Hanif Bhatti, GM (finance) Malik M. Saleem, AS (tech) Khalid Qureshi, Deputy GM Afzal Anjum Toor, AWB Chief Executives and representatives of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

MD-PIDA said that the FOs should be provided necessary official record, attachment of staff and technical trainings so that they could be able to perform their functions efficiently. He said that the above-mentioned tasks should be completed on priority basis. The meeting also reviewed the progress of under construction buildings of the Area Water Board offices at Bahawalnagar and Faisalabad.  The JICA delegation’s head Mr. Susumu Uciumi recommended that the FOs should be provided on the job trainings so that they could efficiently perform their functions. The meeting expressed its satisfaction over the standard of training manuals prepared by the JICA for FOs’ capacity building.  The JICA team urged that separate trainings for general bodies and the management committees of FOs should be conducted without delay.

MD-PIDA directed to ensure the maximum attendance of the staff of Irrigation Department during the orientation workshops which would be exclusively organised for them in the areas of Bahawalnagar and DG Khan.

Environmental Capacity Building Program

The Managing Director PIDA, Mr. Khalid Masood Chaudhary has approved the environmental capacity building program which was prepared by the Social & Environmental Management Unit (SEMU) of PIDA. The said capacity building program has been developed keeping in view the field requirements of canal officers, PIDA, PID and FOs staff as well as the contractors. As per plan, the program will primarily focus of one day training workshops which would be conducted in all irrigation zones of Punjab including small dams project.  

The environmental capacity building workshops will be conducted after complete assessment and analysis of training needs of the stakeholders regarding social and environmental issues and their prompt mitigation measures while executing development works. The participants of the workshops will be provided guidelines regarding the mitigation of social and environmental issues. Similarly, they will also be provided awareness raising material during the training sessions. There has also been planned a documentary which would be prepared for the stakeholders very soon, keeping in view the social and environmental challenges of irrigation sector.

The Managing Director PIDA has directed to especially focus the legal framework of irrigation and environmental sectors during the training workshops. He also has urged to conduct the awareness raising seminars regarding social and environmental threats of water sector as well as the celebration of environment day.       

Progress Review Meeting at LBDCIP Sahiwal

The Deputy General Manager (TM) Mr. Afzal Anjum Toor held a visit in the area of Lower Bari Doab Canal Improvement Project, Sahiwal to observe the issues of Farmers Organizations, after Irrigation Management Transfer agreement. During the first meeting, the Presidents of FOs 2/L, 2/R, 2R/A and Jandraka participated. The Program Director LBDCIP, Mr. Javed Akhtar was also present in the meeting.

While depicting the problems, Mr. Shahid Habib, President FO 2/L informed that there had not been conducted any training session for the capacity building of FOs before or after their operationalization. Resultantly, they are unable to perform as per requirement. Similarly, there have not been allocated offices for them to rum their business smoothly. He also pointed out the poor cooperation of Police in registering the FIRs against water theft delinquents. The issue of lack in coordination among FOs and PID staff was also discussed which is creating hurdles in service delivery. The Presidents also demanded for the inventory of assets from PID. They also informed that no seed money had been provided to FOs for purchase of stationery and office furnisher. The participants also discussed the reasons of delay in Abiana collection.

 In response to the issues raised by FOs representatives, Deputy General Manager (TM) ensured them to expedite the process of their capacity building program so that they could be able to perform their functions efficiently. He also expressed to present the Farmers related issues before the management of PIDA for further policy framing. 

After detailed session with FOs, he also conducted a separate meeting with the staff of LBDCIP in which he was briefed about the reforms implementation. The staff also told him about the hindrances, in the way of reforms implementation. He also conducted a field visit on water channels with staff and FOs representatives.