Chairman PIDA directs to improve mechanism to examine working of Farmer Organizations

Lahore: Provincial Minister for Irrigation and Chairman PIDA Mian Yawar Zaman has directed to set off third party monitoring mechanism to examine and improve the working of Farmer Organizations (FOs) regarding repair and maintenance of water channels in their respective areas.

It was stated by him while presiding over a briefing session regarding working of Farmer Organizations which held in the committee room of Irrigation Department. Besides other, Chief Engineers of Irrigation Department, General Manager (TM) Afzal Anjum Toor, General Manager (OP) Muhabbat Khan and General Manger (F) Muhammad Salim Malik also attended the meeting.

The Minister, while presiding over the meeting said that Farmer Organizations were working under institutional reforms program and fully responsible for the canal operations on their distributaries. He described that there should be a mechanism to check the working of FOs regarding the repair and maintenance of water channels especially during the canal closure period. He hoped that due to the third party mechanism, transparency in the use of public money will be fully ensured and this effort will also help in improving the professional capacity of farmers’ bodies. He further directed the PIDA management to provide technical assistance to the FOs in record management and Abiana collection so that they could produce the required documents during the financial audit.

The Punjab government is working hard to improve the canals infrastructure through irrigation sector reforms program and the role of farmers is very pivotal in it, concluded the minister.