Correspondents of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” report that residents of the villages in Karakum etrap, Mary velayat are requested to make money contributions for the cleaning of irrigation and drainage and sewer networks.
Employees of the etrap department of the production association Marysuwhojalyk visit farmers and ask them to contribute 200 manats per a household ($57 using the official rate or $10 at the “black market” rate) to clean canals and sewers. Otherwise residents are threatened to have their plots of land cut off from the irrigation system.
The cleaning works in water reservoirs and sewers have not been carried out for a few years. This has led to silting and mud deposits in the bottom, which has reduced their carrying capacity. The problem of irrigations of fields results in lower crop yield.
Three dredgers and a bulldozer made by the Japanese manufacturer Komatsu are owned by the water management facility of Karakum etrap. Still, there is a shortage of cleaning equipment because one dredger is broken and the second has been repaired for a long time.
There are Komatsu service centres in Turkmenistan but their services are expensive. The enterprises which have dredgers and bulldozers of this company are often unable to pay for the basic services, such as oil replacement.
Executives of the etrap water management facility are collecting money to lease Marysuwhojalyk dredger in the office of the State Committee on Water Management.
According to the expert, who has worked in the water management sector for many years, ill-managed operations of expensive equipment, a shortage of specialists and corruption does not contribute to keeping irrigation and sewer networks in working order.
The silting of canals, which in turn leads to poor irrigation of fields, is the main agricultural problem in Turkmenistan.A lack of funding, a shortage of equipment and specialists as well as corruption resulted in dilapidated irrigation and drainage water collector networks.
The problem is so serious that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) tried to provide assistance Turkmenistan in 2019 by allocating $170,000 for the purchase of the dredger to clean up the Murgap river.
In 2020 USAID handed over fourteen units of automated water flow measuring equipment to Turkmenistan’s State Committee on Water Management to be installed along the Murghab river in the eastern Mary province of Turkmenistan.
At the Cabinet session held on 6 May President Serdar Berdymukhammedov charged Deputy Prime Minister Esenmyrat Orazgeldiev overseeing agriculture with analyzing the irrigation of fields, the condition of all rivers and canals, clean-up initiatives and the introduction of water conservation technologies.
It should be pointed out that President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov gave similar instructions in 2017-2018.
At the working session held on 10 May the head of state instructed that the Deputy Prime Minister solve the problem of soil reclamation in Dashoguz velayat.
On 16 May Orazgeldiev reported that “efforts are being undertaken to complete the cotton sowing campaign within the shortest timeframe taking into account the water supply of Dashoguz velayat.
The post Residents of Mary velayat chip in for the cleaning of irrigation canals first appeared on Chronicles of Turkmenistan.