NATIONAL Irrigation Administration in Negros Island Region (NIA-NIR) Director Mario Sande said he will fight for the agency’s P66-million budget requirement for this year.
Sande said NIA will discuss how the P2.3-billion initial subsidy from the national government will be shared among the regions in today’s national conference.
“In order for NIA-NIR to survive hopefully, we should fully get P66 million out of the P2.3-billion fund,” he said.
NIA-NIR had already presented the region’s budget requirement for 2017 to Administrator Peter Laviña during the Regional Management Conference at the NIA Regional Office in Bago City last week.
It mainly covers the personal services, maintenance and other operating expenses, incentives and payments for irrigators associations for helping in the operation and maintenance of the systems, and repairs of facilities of the regional office.
With the free irrigation program that mandates no collection of irrigation service fees (ISFs), Sande said they will lose about 80 percent of their income sources.
Laviña had earlier said that to offset these losses, NIA, on top of its corporate funds, will find other means like hydro power production as a fund-generation initiative, adding that he is also bent on lobbying for additional budget with Congress.
Sande, however, said it would still take time for the realization of these measures thus, “it could not help us yet in 2017.”
Irrigation target
Based on its 10-year master plan, the NIA-NIR targets to increase the irrigated areas in the region to 93 percent by 2026.
From the current 46 percent, lower than the national irrigation development status of 57 percent, the agency eyes to increase its coverage by five percent every year.
Its records showed that with the region’s current firmed up service area of 48,790 hectares, the target is to add 58,179 hectares.
Sande said this target can only be achieved through construction of additional dams aside from improving existing irrigations systems.
As of the December 2016 Feasibility Study and Detailed Engineering (FSDE) of NIA-NIR, studies for various projects were conducted and some are already up for implementation.
Of which, the P760-million Malogo Irrigation Project in Silay City will be first implemented this year. NIA funded P100 million for its first tranche.
“This project is positioned to cover more areas in the northern portion of the province,” Sande said, adding that “in constructing additional systems, we have to identify those areas that really need irrigation services.”
