People in two communes of Batheay District get the Benefit from the Flood Control Project (English Version)

People in two communes of Batheay District get the Benefit from the Flood Control Project of KOICA

KOICA News Release: translate from local newspaper

Rasmei Kampuchea Daily:

Year 18 Volume 5115, Tuesday, February 2, 2010

[caption id="attachment_942" align="aligncenter" width="476" caption="National and International Reporters went to see the Flood Control Project in Batheay district, PICTURE FROM KOICA CAMBODIA OFFICE"][/caption]

Batheay-Kampong Cham: The people in Chealea and Sambo communes of Bateay district, Kampong Cham province ....

People in two communes of Batheay District get the Benefit from the Flood Control Project

KOICA News Release: translate from local newspaper

Rasmei Kampuchea Daily:

Year 18 Volume 5115, Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Batheay-Kampong Cham: The people in Chealea and Sambo communes of Bateay district, Kampong Cham province got the benefit from the Project of Batheay Flood Control which was the grant aid of the Republic of Korea through the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). This project was spent US$ 4.5 million from Korean side and it was also spent some fund from the Government of Cambodia.

Mr. JONG GAB KIM, senior engineer of water resources sector of the Yooshin Engineering Corporation informed the national and international news reporters during the field visit to Kampong Cham that the 31.70 Km flood control dam was finished 60%. This flood control dam will assist the improvement of water management to be effectiveness by constructing the irrigation systems.

This dam would increase rice production of village people by planting rice in the rice fields from one time per year to two or three times per year. This dam would provide enough water to other eight canals to plant rice in dry season. This dam was 7 meters width that could use as traffic road, Mr. JONG GAB KIM said during the field visit to the project site that organized by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) to see the achievement of KOICA to Cambodia last Friday, January 29, 2010.

Mr. JONG GAB KIM went on to say that, this flood control dam could be used for 22 villages by increasing the rice field from 1,800ha to 6,650ha and the beneficiary was 30,500 persons. He continued to say that the first phase of Batheay flood control project could keep water for rice field up to 50 million square meters. The second phase of the project also could keep the water up to 50 million square meters.

Mr. Son Sung-il, Deputy Representative of KOICA to Cambodia informed that this Batheay flood control dam was the achievement of the cooperation between the government of the Republic of Korea and the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology of the Kingdom of Cambodia. He continued to say that through project KOICA invited Cambodian government officers to train in the Republic of Korea and training Cambodian farmers on water management.

He went on to say that, "I hope that the village people will get more income from this project because it was model project in Cambodia on irrigation sector". He also said that this project provided two types of benefit, first, it could protect people from the flood during the flood season, and second, people could use this water for their rice field.

Mr. Nhil Chamroeun, Sambo village chief, was very delighted. He also confirmed that his village people could plant their rice only one time per year, but when we received this project, they can plant their rice may time per year.

He continued to say that we have 400 families in Sambo village that got the benefit from this project.

Mr. Ten Sath, Sambo commune chief said that from the year 2000 to 2004, the rice plantation of commune people were always rotten because of the flood during the flood season. This commune also got drought sometime. After his commune received this flood control project, he hoped that his commune people would have more income.

He went on to say that among seven village of his commune, only 5 villages got the benefit from this flood control project. He continued to say that water management was not good enough because in his commune did not have enough water for the dry season. Anyway, this problem could be solved after the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology established the FWUC (Farmer Water Users Community).