Posted on February, 6, 2017 at 11:34 am
MOSHI District Council has taken step to improve infrastructure on rice field irrigation project at Miwaleni Scheme lower Moshi to remove the challenges of water loss and frequent conflicts between water users and investor TPC.
Moshi District council, Agriculture and corporate officer, Mr Chikira Mcharo, said improvements are expected to reduce unnecessary water wastage and improve supply. Mcharo said project that in the second phase focused on improvements expected to cost 147m/- while 216m/- was used in the first phase.
“Improvements have focused on use scheme falls to increase the quantity of water to plug all water wastage which will help to solve conflicts between water users and investor, TPC and as much water available, production will be increased from current six tonnes of rice per hectare to 7.5 tonnes and more,” he said.
Moshi District Execautive Director, Butamo Ndalahwa, said phase two of the project is expected to end in April, this year, where users from three villages forming Ongama that are Oria, Ngasini and Mawela villagesare to get 700 ml of water per second and TPC investor will get 1,700 ml per seconds She said the cooperative society was responsible to ensure all the paddy fields farmers paid the costs of water each season in order to get money to clean up scheme.
Kilimanjaro Regional Commissioner (RC), Said Meck Sadiki, the government was responsible to build the scheme after undergoing feasibility and hand over to citizens.
The farmers should clean the channels and pay fees for the use of water resources to Pangani Water Basin each season so that they can manage to maintain infrastructure.
Source: Daily News