WATER COURSE
At village Ghulam Sarwar Khan

By Engr.Ayaz Ahmad, Field Engineer, Mardan Region.

Project location:

Project description

Project type: Total Length: Designed Width of watercourse: Designed Depth of watercourse: Slope in Watercourse: Project initiation date: Project completion date: Number of beneficiaries: Population: Benefited member HH: Benefited non member HH:

Designing and lining of water course 1390 Rft 1’-9” & 1’-6” 2’-0” & 1’-9” 0.001 14/01/2003 20/03/2003 29 Households 232 persons 13 HH 16 HH

Financial description:

Total construction cost: Rs.286795.00/-
PPAF contribution: Rs. 223700.00/-
CO contribution: Rs. 63095.00/-

Project Location and Description:

The proposed project is located in the village Ghulam Sarwar Khan Kalay, which is situated at a distance of 21 km from Mardan towards southwest. The villagers are permanent residents of this area. Their main language is pushto. Main occupations of the villager are agriculture, live stock rearing and some of them also works as daily wagers. The villagers enjoy the facility of linked road and electricity, having govt. primary school for boys. There is also one primary school for boys and one for girls as well established by HDF.

Almost 70% of the community is directly linked with agriculture, uses primitive method in agriculture fields. Watercourses in the village are almost unlined. The watercourses that are to be lined consist of two portions, one of which is 790 feet long and another is of 600 feet length. The main corps of the area is, sugarcane, Sugar beat, wheat and vegetable.

Project Identification:

The inhabitant of the village formed a DO on date 01/09/1999. With 16 membership having Rs. 94,000/- savings up till now. Most of the villagers have their own agriculture lands, irrigated by kaccha watercourses. As unlined watercourse reduces its capacity to provide required quantity of water to the fields. Large quantity of water is wasted due to unnecessary flow at the points where the banks of watercourse are badly destroyed by heavy rainwater floods. Because of which water is not available at the tail end of the fields, which greatly effects production of corps from the fields.

The community observed their prioritized need, as lining of the watercourse. In this regard they submitted a resolution to HDF requesting both technical and financial assistance for the provision of irrigation scheme. The field staff of HDF (Field Engineer, Social Organizers) conducted technical and social surveys with the concerned CO and found the scheme feasible.

The Objective of the Project:

The main objectives of the project are:

• To prevent seepage loss and thus more area can be irrigated.
• To decrease workload on farmers.
• To minimize the social disputes arising over shortage and theft of water in peak cropping days.
• To prevent silting in the watercourse.
• To provide smooth surface, to increase velocity of flow.
• To provide more stable banks to reduce erosion and wastage of water through banks.
• To reduce maintenance cost of watercourse.
• To reduce weed growth.
• To assure economical water distribution.
• It is also an important anti water logging measure.

DESIGN AND COST ESTIMATE:

Design:

A detail survey of the area was conducted along with the CO members and it was observed that a kaccha channel exists in which at the head end slope is maximum, and at tail a new watercourse is supposed at one of the turning point of the kaccha watercourse which will join another watercourse which is also unlined by the combination of these two courses more water will be available to the fields nearby, so the community wants to construct a new watercourse and to line the existing one from junction point to the end.

Beyond the junction point this channel has blocked at several sections due to sliding of earth banks, large quantity of water is wasted due to seepage at different sections and also due to out flow at the points where the course is badly damaged. Keeping in view all of these aspects, it is proposed that lining of channel should be provided to achieve the main objectives of the project as discussed above.

The designed length of channel is proposed as 1390 feet, and the section designed are shown in the working drawings.

The capacity of watercourse has been designed by taking into account water requirements of the crops in the area and then using Manning formula the designed data has been provided as follows.

Cost Estimate:

Total construction cost of the project would be Rs 2,86,795/- with PPAF contribution of Rs 2,23,700/- and community contribution of Rs 63,095/-. The community will provide the land free of cost. The cost estimate is based on local markets rates. Skilled person with necessary tools would be hired from outside the village. The community itself would provide unskilled labour required. The details are attached as annexure-C.

Maintenance Cost:

Maintenance cost is Rs 8,604/- per annum at 3% of the total cost. The CO will open a separate account in the bank before the completion of the project. The annual maintenance cost will be collected by the maintenance committee from community and will deposit in the bank. The money will be spent on the maintenance of the project and maintenance committee will keep record of all expenditure.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT:

As the project is proposed to upgrade the economical condition of the community and to provide a sustainable irrigation scheme, therefore all of the environmental aspects are studied and found no negative impact of the project on environment and as such no mitigation measures are required.

Qualitative Benefits:

Impact on Assets:

Agriculture land is the most sustainable asset of farmers. With this project land productivity would be increased by 40% and the farmers would be able to get 100% cropping intensity from farms. With such high productivity this asset of land will become more valuable.

Impact on food:

With proper availability of water for irrigation, all type of crops can be cultivated over this land. Thus food availability will become more secured.

Impact on livestock:

With more cultivation and agriculture production, more food will be available for livestock and more production can be got from livestock.

Cash income:

With secured water for irrigation, cash crops can be cultivated resulting in cash income for farmers.

Impact on health:

Wheat shortage has been a serious problem of villagers for the last few years. With this project, production would be increased and is expected to impact nutrition standards of the villagers. Similarly health improvement of livestock will impact live stock bi-products and ultimately villager’s nutrition standards would be improved.