Regular Monitoring of Irrigation Infrastructure During Flood Season

Managing Director PIDA/Secretary Irrigation Punjab Captain (R) Zahid Saeed has said that officers as well as field staff of irrigation department is on high alert during the current flood season; adding that irrigation infrastructure is being regularly monitored to avoid the havoc of floods.

It was stated by him while addressing a departmental farewell party at the committee room of Punjab Irrigation & Drainage Authority (PIDA) in honor of Chief Engineer (Drainage & Flood) Chaudhary Bashir Ahmad Zahid and General Manager (TM) Mian Maqbool Ahmad. Both the officers have stood retired on reaching the age of superannuation. Besides others, Additional Secretary (Technical) Khalid Hussain Qureshi, General Manager (Operations-PIDA) Muhammad Younus Bhatti, Secretary PIDA Afzal Anjum Toor and Director SPRU Muhammad Amar Khan were also present in the farewell ceremony.

The secretary acknowledged the services of the both the retiring officers and asked other officers to work hard to resolve the public grievances and water related problems on priority basis. He urged the irrigation officers to bring behavioral changes in their staff and perform their duties in the best interest of the public. He said that irrigation department and PIDA were established as the service delivery organizations to facilitate the farmers at their doorstep. He added that the irrigation department was efficiently performing its role during the current flood season to protect the huge irrigation infrastructure so that the human beings, livestock as well as crops could be saved from the gushing waters. He further told that irrigation department has established good coordination and rapport with the district administration and other allied departments to cope with the effects of flood in Punjab. Later, gifts were given to the retiring officers by the officers and staff of irrigation department.

Joint Monitoring Meeting on PISIP-SIAP Projects

The 11^th Joint Monitoring meeting held in the committee room of Irrigation Department, chaired by Managing Director PIDA Captain (Rtd) Zahid Saeed to observe the progress on PISIP-SIAP activities regarding water saving technologies and irrigation sector reforms program.

The meeting was attended by the Chief Advisor JICA Mr. Norio Kyono, Training Specialist Mr. Takashi Fujisaki, Technical Advisor JICA Muhammad Aslam Qureshi, General Manager (TM) Mian Maqbol Ahmad, General Manager (OP) Muhammad Younas Bhatti, General Manager (Finance) Malik Muhammad Salim, Secretary PIDA Afzal Anjum Toor, Project Director PISIP Muhammad Ahmad Usmani and other concerned officers.

The Chief Advisor JICA, while briefing the project activities told that on the successful completion of water saving technologies, the component has been closed while the capacity building program for PIDA and Agriculture Department officers is underway. He told that the purpose to launch the capacity building program was to develop, improve the training material and operational references of FOs and AWBs. While describing the project objectives, he emphasized upon the successful introduction/promotion of water saving technologies in the main pilot areas of the project.

The meeting also reviewed the reasons of delay in FOs elections in LCC (W) AWB and decided to conduct the same as early as possible. The MD PIDA directed the chief executives of LCC (W) and Bahawalnagar AWBs to complete the elections of Jalwala and Pabbarwala FOs without further delay and the General Manager (TM) will directly monitor the elections process without any change in schedule.