Businessman blocked the canal for the sake of the cafe: crops are threatened by drought

Three hundred farms in Turkestan Region could be left without irrigation water. Farmers are outraged - construction has begun on their irrigation canal. It turned out that enterprising businessmen decided to build a cafe by the water, reports World of NAN with reference to inbusiness.

For the sake of coldness for future customers, they have already blocked a canal with concrete slabs of almost 100 meters. The construction has caused farmers to panic. Their farms are one step away from drought and loss of crops. They are going to build a cafe on the water. This will ruin the fields, the farmers say. 100 meters of the canal have already been closed off with concrete slabs. This will reduce the flow of water, which already hardly reaches remote farms. And if the canal is blocked, the fields will be left without irrigation. No excavator will help.

"The aryk is being covered up. This water comes to us on 1500 ha for irrigation purposes, and here they cover it and create such a problem for us. The 100-meter canal is closed. If it is blocked, not if, but most certainly when, who will clean it for us," says Sultantai Parpeyev, a farmer.

The legality of building a cafe on the irrigation canal is also questioned by representatives of the Agriculture Department of Turkestan Region. Environmentalists have already stated that such a construction site is unacceptable on water protection sites. Now the ball is in the court of architecture.

"From this "Yangikanal" are watered 3,500 hectares in Karabulak. On 10 May, we met with local residents. We wrote letters to the Departments of Architecture and Ecology to assess the construction. We sent letters to entrepreneurs asking them to suspend operations for now", said Asyl Asetov, chief specialist of the Sairam District Department of Agriculture.

Irrigation has been a major issue on these fields for about 10 years. During this time, the flow from the mountains has decreased by 40%, Southern Water Management Facility said. The available volumes of the two canals have to be divided among the peasant farms. Farmers at best manage to water their crops once a week, so they have to save every liter. If they close one of the canals for the cafe, they will have to save even more.

"There's not much water coming in right now. Only 7,500 liters per second, so we divide the water among the canals. Who has a big canal, more there, who has a small canal, less. Yangikanal gets four days, and Saikarabulak gets four days. If the farm is large, it irrigates once a week," said Bolatbek Dosov, an engineer at the District Water Management Facility in Sairam District.

Many farmers could not cope with irrigation disruptions and turned their land into their own farms. However, a few years later people found out that it was absolutely impossible to do this on irrigated land. And now according to the court decision, they have to tear down their farms and plant different crops on the land. But the dekhan farmers do not know what to irrigate their crops with.

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