On January 23, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development organized a delegation to inspect the water supply situation for winter-spring crop cultivation. The delegation included leaders of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development; representatives of the Irrigation Sub-Department, and the Irrigation Works Exploitation Company Limited (KTCTTL).

The delegation inspected Khanh An 1 Pumping Station (Khanh An Commune), Ky Giang Pumping Station (Khanh Nhac Commune) and the progress of water collection and land preparation at Nam Cuong Cooperative (Khanh Cuong Commune).

Accordingly, Khanh An 1 Pumping Station supplies irrigation water to about 460 hectares of agricultural land in Khanh An and Khanh Cu communes. Due to being in the process of investment and upgrading, to ensure water supply for production, the unit has installed 4 field pumps with a total capacity of over 4,000 m3/h to operate temporarily until the project is completed.

At Ky Giang Pumping Station (Khanh Nhac Commune), staff and workers are also on duty, ensuring maximum capacity to bring water to the fields. In Khanh Cuong Commune alone, the fields have basically received enough water, and plowing equipment is completing the final stages of land preparation, ready for planting.

At the inspection, comrade Nguyen Thanh Binh, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, requested the Irrigation Sub-Department and KTCTTL One Member Co., Ltd. to arrange staff and workers to manage 24/24 hours, proactively exploit and operate well the equipment and machinery to take water to flood areas according to plan, avoiding water loss with the motto: basically taking enough water to flood areas to serve agricultural production right in the first phase. Localities should raise awareness of water saving, instruct farmers to bring water to where, prepare the land, and keep water there, avoiding wasting water resources...

This winter-spring crop, the whole province plans to cultivate about 39 thousand hectares of rice and 6 thousand hectares of vegetables. To ensure irrigation water sources, from the beginning of the crop, the Irrigation Sub-Department has closely coordinated with the Provincial Irrigation Works Exploitation Company Limited and localities to proactively develop plans, effectively manage and exploit irrigation works, dredge canals, manage resources, save water, proactively take water according to the water discharge schedule of the Vietnam Electricity Group (for tidal areas), regulate water in the electric pump area and the lake area according to the production requirements of each region and each locality.

As of 9:00 a.m. on January 23, the area with enough water for land preparation was over 23,000 hectares (accounting for 64.8%), mainly concentrated in areas using electric pumps and water sources, in the districts of Nho Quan, Gia Vien, Hoa Lu, Yen Mo, Yen Khanh, Ninh Binh city, and Tam Diep city.

For the tidal water intake area (most of Kim Son district and part of Yen Mo and Yen Khanh districts), KTCTTL units are closely following the tidal schedule and water discharge schedule of hydroelectric reservoirs (phase 1: From 0:00 on January 23 to 24:00 on January 30, 2024; phase 2: From 0:00 on February 18 to 24:00 on February 21, 2024), making the most of the time to open the locks and sluices to take water during high tides and allowable salinity.

Nguyen Luu-Anh Tuan