Drainage scheme failed due to lack of commitment

Pakistani youngsters play in a drainage channel after heavy rain fall in Islamabad, Pakistan.

The Asian Development Bank has said the National Drainage Programme could not be implemented because of a lack of commitment on the part of the federal and provincial governments.
The agricultural development project was estimated to cost $185 million, a larger chunk of which was to be provided by the ADB and World Bank.

The project was taken up in 1998. However, only $31.14 million was spent and only three of its 28 components could be completed.Seven components of the project were partially completed and the remaining 18 were not undertaken, says a report of the ADB’s Operations Evaluation Department.

The bank has presented a bleak picture of the drainage programme, which is part of the government’s 25-year drainage investment envisaged in 1993 under the Drainage System Environmental Assessment.

The ADB and World Bank were to provide loans for the project and the government and some institutional investors were to share the cost.

The report blames insufficient commitment of the Water and Power Development Authority and the provincial irrigation and drainage authorities to carry out reforms in their own organisations for the failure of the project.

It points out that in the NWFP and Sindh, some of the maintenance and rehabilitation works had not been sustainable, and drains reverted to their pre-works conditions by the time of completion of the project. The reluctance of the implementing agencies to comply with land acquisition and resettlement framework agreed to as part of the project designs was one of the hurdles.

The report has also termed ADB’s own performance ‘unsatisfactory’. It observed that although the bank sent 12 special loan administration missions, six loan review missions and a mid-term review mission, the project implementation ‘failed to improve’.

In Balochistan, the project’s component included (a) rehabilitation of about 20km of sub-drains and construction of new on-farm drainage facilities for about 2,000 hectares, (b) modernisation of the management of the Pat Feeder canal system, (c) rehabilitation of selected distribution canals, and (d) performance contracts for about 300km of drains. Pilot initiatives for decentralisation of system management were also included.

In the NWFP, the sub-component comprised (a) the transfer of about 220 shallow tube-wells (STWs) in fresh groundwater areas, rehabilitation of about 300 km of sub-drains and construction of new on-farm drainage facilities for about 2,500 hectares, (b) modernisation of the management of NWFP’s major canal systems and rehabilitation of selected distribution canals, and (c) performance contracts for about 1,700km of drains and about 60 STWs, as well as pilot initiatives for decentralisation of system management.

In Sindh, the only component involved was rehabilitation and improvement of about 400km of sub-drains, transfer of about 1,300 STWs in fresh groundwater areas, replacement of STWs in saline groundwater areas, and construction of new on-farm drainage facilities for about 2,500 hectares.