Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) has intensified efforts for the inclusion of a key irrigation project in the second phase of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which experts believe could change fortunes of nearly a million people overnight.

The Chashma Right Bank Canal (CRBC) lift-cum-gravity project was a long-pending scheme to irrigate around 300,000 acres of land, especially in Dera Ismail Khan, K-P’s southern district. These are fertile lands but are not cultivated in the absence of irrigation water. DI Khan Agriculture University expert Dr Shoaib said the project could lift people in four to five districts of K-P from extreme poverty to an unprecedented level of prosperity. Currently, people having hundreds of acres of land there could hardly feed their families. However, if the CRBC lift canal project is executed, these poverty-stricken people will become millionaires in a matter of days, Shoaib commented.

He labelled the project as a real game changer given its agricultural and economic impact on the vast population.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2273312/cpec-new-ray-of-hope-for-irrigation-project