LAHORE – Highlighting scarcity of water in the country, Agriculture Minister Malik Nouman Langrial has emphasised the need for enhancing the use drip irrigation system in Punjab.
Addressing a meeting here, the minister said department was encouraging drip irrigation under on-going Punjab Irrigated-Agriculture Productivity Improvement Project (PIPIP) to overcome scarcity of water. Under this project, he said, Department was installing drip and sprinkler irrigation on subsidy basis in the fields of farmers.
Drip irrigation system, he said, was suitable for crop cultivation when irrigation water or rainwater was not enough for conventional farming. This technology, he said, was so far adopted by many farmers across Punjab owing to acute shortage of river water and limited rains. Keeping in view its high efficiency in conserving water, increasing per acre yield and reducing cost of cultivation, he said there was a need to create awareness among farmers about the drip irrigation system.
With this technology, he said, farmers could save 60 percent electricity and diesel costs augmenting per acre yield by 100 percent. It was need of time to move towards modern resource conservation technologies such as drip irrigation to cope with the situation of water scarcity in upcoming years, he said, adding need of time was to start water saving awareness campaign.