National Program for Improvement of Watercourses in Pakistan_ (Phase-II) - The Punjab Component

The Federal PSDP and Provincial ADP funded project "National Program for Improvement of Watercourses in Pakistan (Phase-II) (NPIW-II) - The Punjab Component envisages watercourses improvement, provision of LASER units to farmers/service provider and construction of water storage ponds.

Project objectives

The overall project objective is to improve water productivity i.e. producing more crop per drop. It will be achieved through increasing water delivery/ conveyance efficiency, enhancing irrigation application efficiency and promoting on farm water storage for ensuring irrigation of crops at critical stages of growth. The project objectives would contribute towards increasing water productivity vis-à-vis agricultural production, higher incomes from the farming, more employment opportunities in rural areas, better living standards of the farmers, and positive environment outcomes.
The proposed project will have following key objectives.

• Improve productivity of irrigation water through efficient conveyance and its effective farm level use by adopting water conservation techniques.
• Strengthen private sector service delivery capacity and sustainability for supporting irrigated agriculture.
• Build capacity of stakeholders in better management of irrigation water for attaining higher crop yields with less production costs.                                

Key Components 

The major activities to be carried out under the NPIW-II would include, interalia, the followings

• Improvement of 2,500 unimproved watercourses upto 50% of total length for enhancing conveyance efficiency
• Additional lining of 7,500 partially improved watercourses upto 50% of length to harness potential of watercourse improvement
• Provision of 9,500 LASER land levelers to the farmers/ service providers for strengthening LASER land leveling services in the private sector
• Construction of 3,000 on-farm water storage ponds in irrigated areas for storing excess canal/ rainwater for supplemental irrigation