ADB to lend extra $13.5m to modernise irrigation

The  Asian Development Bank (ADB) yesterday signed agreements with  Bangladesh for a $13.5 million in additional project loan to modernise  irrigation in the country.

The additional loan will improve  management, operation, and maintenance of large-scale irrigation schemes  and protect productive lands from flooding. The additional loan will  scale up the ongoing $46 million Irrigation Management Improvement  Project.

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Fatima Yasmin, secretary of the Economic Relations  Division, and Edimon Ginting, country director of the ADB, virtually  signed the loan agreements, said the bank in a press release.

Ginting  said the assistance would help manage the effects of water abundance  and scarcity by improving irrigation management and infrastructure.

"To  promote sustainability in the water sector, this project will foster  private sector participation by transferring management, operation, and  maintenance of irrigation schemes from government departments to private  operators."

The project will also introduce innovative  infrastructure modernisation, such as replacing diesel motor pumps with  electric pumps, developing highly efficient buried-pipe tertiary  distribution systems, and installing prepaid card metre systems.

The project will repair 17 kilometres of the coastal embankment and re-excavate over 400km of canal drains.

By  2024, it will increase the dry-season irrigation area under the Muhuri  irrigation system by 60 per cent to 18,000 hectares. The average yield  of irrigated winter paddy, or boro, is expected to increase to four  tonnes per hectare from three tonnes in 2013.

The project will  ensure the employment of at least 2 per cent women as pump operators, 5  per cent as mobile water unit vendors, and 5 per cent women as  construction workers.

The assistance supports the improvement of  climate resilience by promoting improved flood protection, reservoir  management, and water use efficiency, said the press release.