Egypt’s Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel Aty has held a meeting to review the progress of canal rehabilitation and transformation into modern irrigation projects.
During the meeting on Sunday, Abdel Aty directed the continuation of work on the national project to rehabilitate canals with the highest rates of implementation, taking into account all technical requirements and standards.
He stated that the ministry’s agencies are making huge efforts to implement the national project to rehabilitate canals, under the supervision of the ministry’s engineers, inspection committees from the ministry, and scientific cadres from Egyptian universities in the governorates.
The minister explained that the ministry’s competent authorities are carrying out comprehensive technical studies before offering and starting implementation, and all necessary tests are done during and after implementation.
Moreover, the minister stated that by following up on the water situation in the rehabilitated canals and the state of irrigation in the lands located within the project, there has been a significant improvement in the process of water management and distribution.
He explained that the project contributed to reducing the time required for irrigation along the canal, resolving the problems of water shortage at the ends of the canals, and access of all farmers to the canals to receive their share of water in a timely manner.
An improvement of water quality in the canals was noticed after removing grasses, and clearly refraining from dumping waste in the canals, and raising the market value of the agricultural land after the rehabilitation process.
The rehabilitation of canals with lengths of up to 2,248 km has been completed in various governorates of the republic, and work is under way to implement another 6,037 km. The project covers 8,233 km of canals in its first phase which will be completed by mid-2022.
On the other hand, the ministry continued its efforts to encourage farmers to switch from flood irrigation systems to modern irrigation systems, to rationalise water consumption, as one of the most important axes of the national water resources plan.
