HYDERABAD, Jan 25: Sub-committees have been constituted at the taluka-level to expedite work on development projects being executed under the National Programme for Improvement of Watercourses in the district.

The decision to set up the committees was made at a meeting held here on Tuesday, which was presided over by EDO (agriculture) Shahabuddin Siddiqui and attended by officers of revenue, on farm water management and community development departments.

Speaking on the occasion, the EDO said that the deputy district officer (revenue) would head the committees and his counterparts in agriculture, farm water management and community development departments would be their members.

He said that the committees have been assigned to complete formation of watercourse associations and update lists of watercourses in their area within a week so that targeted watercourses could be improved by the end of the current financial year.

The EDO informed the meeting that 150 watercourse associations had been formed but 104 associations were yet to be formed. He further said that against 2,930 targeted watercourses, lining of 517 had been planned during the first year of the project i.e. 2004-2005 but due to shortage of staff, the number of the latter watercourses had been reduced to 254.

Mr Siddiqui said that the remaining 263 watercourses would be covered during following years. He said that after completion of recruitment of the staff during current year, 674 watercourses would be lined in year 2005-6, 792 in 2006-7 and 947 in 2007-8.

Mr Siddiqui said that Hyderabad was leading in the province in the progress of on-going work of the project and has completed first watercourse of the project whereas lining of second watercourse would be completed by the end of the current month.

The director of the programme monitoring unit, Hyderabad region, Shafiq Ahmed Mahesar, said that inventories of watercourses provided by the Sindh irrigation department should be examined as current survey showed 33,000 watercourses against inventories of 29,000 watercourses.

Similarly, the share lists of watercourses were not up to date and even comprised on deceased people, he added. Mr Mahesar said that it was the first project in which farmers had been given the executing authority whereas the government departments were only extending technical and financial help to them.

District officer (revenue) Farooq Laghari directed the officers of his department to revise Foti Khatas in revenue record as they had created legal hurdles in implementation of the project.