RICE farmers in the Basket Plimpler area aback of Perth Village, Mahaicony, Region Five, earlier this week breathed a collective sigh of relief when the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) deployed a functioning excavator there.
The machine will clear irrigation channels, thereby allowing over 1000 acres of water-starved rice cultivations to gain access to water.
David Hicks of the NDIA confirmed that the machine was deployed to the area last weekend and prominent rice farmer Sampson Gibbons said it commenced work on Monday last, much to the relief of affected rice farmers.
Gibbons said farmers were hoping that three main irrigation channels would be cleaned within the next few days and that another channel which would allow irrigation from the Biaboo Main Canal to the Basket Plimpler plots would also be excavated/desilted within this same time frame.
Meanwhile, a machine which had been deployed to the Basket Plimpler area since December last remained on site in an inoperable condition.
Hicks said the machine had developed a major breakdown almost immediately on arrival at the site.
It had not cleaned a single rod since early December and this has been cause for concern among rice farmers whose crops need irrigation.
Hicks also said that enhancement of the dam on a drainage channel between Profitt and Foulis villages, which had been a source of controversy, had been a legitimate NDIA operation and was no cause for alarm.
He disclosed that the dam had been placed over drainage tubes in the canal to keep them from being washed away, flooding the nearby access dam.
“The dam doesn’t go right down to the bottom of the canal. It rests on top of the tubes and the tubes had been there for years,” he said.
“There was a misconception as to the purpose of the dam,” he noted, adding that he hoped that this concern would abate.
Concerns about the “blocked” channel between Foulis and Profitt Villages and water-starved young rice crops in the Basket Plimpler Branch Road, Mahaicony area had been raised with Regional Executive Officer Ovid Morrison.
This matter has now been resolved.
