Water Charging Policy in Strezevo Irrigation System
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Water charging policy in Strezevo Irrigation System 1 ILIJA KONDINSKI 1 MSc. of Civil Engineering, JP "Strezevo" - Bitola Bulevar 1 Maj bb - 7000 Bitola, Republic of Macedonia, Email: [email protected] Abstract The irrigated agriculture is the biggest water consumer in the Republic of Macedonia. The ability and willingness to pay of the Macedonian farmers, due to numerous political, economical, social and other factors, are low. As a result of these, we had a poor irrigation water charges collection, because of which nearly all of the water economy enterprises are in a bad economical state. The legal regulations which affect this issue will be analyzed, along with the real shown influences on the irrigation water charging policy. The undertaken actions in Public Enterprise Strezevo for improving the water charge collection and the results that have been achieved will be presented. Keywords: irrigation water charging, ability to pay, willingness to pay. General data The Strezevo Irrigation System (SIS) is situated in the south-western part of the Republic of Macedonia. It is multipurpose system which obtains irrigation of 20.200 ha net cultivated area and domestic and industrial water supply. The town of Bitola is an administrative, economic and cultural center of that area. Around forty villages within command area of the irrigation system are represented the rural environment. The Irrigation Pipeline Network (IPN) of the Strezevo Irrigation System enables an irrigation of the part of Pelagonia Plain limited by the river Semnica at the north, river Crna at the east, Macedonian-Greek border at the south and the Main Supply Channel at the west. The terrain conditions allows sufficient gravity pressure for sprinkling irrigation of more than 90% of the agricultural area covered by the IPN. IPN is a network of main and lateral pipelines with total length of 534 km. The 11 main pipelines (104 km total length), are attached to the Main Supply Channel through 10 intake structures, at the 2 - 2.5 km mutual distance, covering correspondent net area from 175 - 3,217 ha (see Table 1). The seven main pipelines are made of steel pipes and another three ones from Glass Fiber Reinforced Polyester (GRP) pipes (3). Table 1. Irrigation pipeline network - Intakes, main pipelines and corresponded irrigated areas Intake No. Main pipeline Irrigated net area [ha] 1 SR1 (1C)* 557 2 G1 (2C) 1.190 3 SR7 (3C) 1.937 4 SR9 (4C) 1.496 5 G2 (5C) 3.217 6 G3 (6C) 2.567 7 SR11 (7C) 2.195 8 G4 (8C) 2.100 9 SR12 (9C) 2.293 10 G5 (10C) 1.873 SR13 (11C) 175 * The pipeline has not been built yet The lateral pipelines (total 428) are connected to the main pipelines. They are made of hard PVC pipes, with 430 km total length, placed at mutual distance of 600 m and 30-60 ha solely service area. At every 100 m along the lateral pipelines, there are watering valves (hydrants) where the irrigation equipment is attached. The total arable area covered by the SIS are consisted of 10.293 ha private property and 9.907 ha state (former social) property. The size of the plots in the private sector is as follows: BALWOIS 2010 – Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia – 25, 29 May 2010 1/8 Table 2. The size of the plots in the private sector in Strezevo Irrigation System Possessed by the Size of plots Net area household [ha] [ha] [%] < 1 11 1.300 1 ÷ 3 31 3.100 3 ÷ 10 58 5.893 Total 100 10.293 There is wide range of used irrigation equipment: linear and corner systems, different types of portable sprinkling sets, self-propelled vanes, typhoons and drip irrigation systems, but there are still lot of farmers which have no or not sufficient irrigation equipment. According to the design crop pattern the mostly presented crops are: wheat (23.7%), sugar beet (19.6%), alfalfa (17.3%), maize (11.3%), tobacco (6.1%), sunflower (4.9%) and, so called "high value" crops - vegetables, orchards, hops and vineyards (18,1%). ______ Main Supply Canal • Main Canal Offtakes ______ Irrigation Pipeline Network • Head Office and Command Center Figure 1. Strezevo Irrigation System, layout of infrastructural facilities BALWOIS 2010 – Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia – 25, 29 May 2010 2/8 Irrigation Water Charge - a basic condition for sustainable management of Irrigation Schemes The irrigated agriculture is the biggest water consumer in Macedonia. Key participants in this process are Water Economy Enterprises as suppliers of water and irrigation water users, which generally can be divided into two groups: farmers and privatized joint stock companies formed after the dissolution of the former socialistic agrocombinates. Generally, privatized agrocombinates, which in most cases use state land under long term concession, pay the water fee regularly. As legal entities, whose economic viability is directly related to the tendency to achieve higher yields from the crops, and because one of the main factors is the irrigation, they are aware of the great importance of water, thus trying to maintain good relations with water economy enterprises. The ability and willingness to pay the water irrigation fee by farmers, as a result of numerous political, economic, social and other factors is low. The result is the poor recovery of irrigation water charges, because almost all the companies providing services in water supply for irrigation are in a difficult financial situation. Legislation The structure and manner of collection of the water irrigation charges are regulated by the Water Management Enterprise Law (Official Gazette of RM No. 85 of 31.12.2003). Irrigation water are delivered on the basis of long-term contracts for water supply which are made by the Water User Associations and annual contracts for the supply of water in the irrigation season that is made with individual users. According to the mentioned contracts an annual charge (fixed part) and a charge for the delivered water amount (variable part) shall be paid. The annual charge is the amount of the costs of ongoing annual maintenance of the irrigation system and is paid in advance by December 31 each year for the next year. Its value is in correlation with irrigated plot size. The fixed part ensured a basic income even in dry years when there was little or no irrigation demand. In SIS, for a long time, the fixed part was equivalent to 50% of the total projected cost of operation and maintenance (O&M) and depreciation charges for the coming year (now this portion is 10%). The charge for the delivered quantity of water is the cost of the amount of water supplied to the consumers, according to its volume, which is paid on a monthly basis following the delivery. This variable part in SIS was based on a per hectare price for the different crops with the price per crop loosely reflecting water consumption. The Billing Service in SIS delivers the bill for this charge once a year, after the current irrigation season ends. Since 1992, the irrigation water price in SIS has not been increased, and it is 0,016 EUR/m3. The fixed part of the irrigation water fee amounts 7,05 EUR/ha. The irrigation water fee per hectare in SIS is depending from the value of net crop water requirement, and it varies within the limits: 20 - 70 EUR/ha. Undertaken activities to increase the irrigation water fee collection in Strezevo Irrigation System At the end of 2009, especially in November, within the activities of the Billing Service in SIS, an extra action has been taken to send Notices for unpaid debt for irrigation to the farmers for the period 2006 - 2008. The year 2006 is taken as the last year for which a lawsuit may be filed to the court in jurisdiction. In the Notices the date of 05.12.2009 was referred as the deadline for regulating the commitment of farmers to pay the debt, and after which the unpaid debt was to be paid by court order. Until 25.12.2009 no complaints have been filed, leaving space for paying many of the debts. It should be noted that no interest penalty for the delay of payment of the farmers’ debts from past years has been taken into account. The innovation in the delivery of the Notices was that instead of the usual way by mail, the Notices were delivered to the users’ houses by the employees of the Billing Service aided by numerous employees of the administration and other operational sectors of the SIS. BALWOIS 2010 – Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia – 25, 29 May 2010 3/8 The Notice distribution, 4333 in total, was completed within 14 calendar days. The Notices were distributed during the morning and for those users who were not home at the time, the Notices were distributed in the afternoons and on weekends. Proof that the Notice has been received by the user was his signature or the signature of a family member, after which the original was left to the user, and a copy was taken by the deliverer. This manner of notice distribution, with the involvement of a great number of employees from the SIS has resulted in several benefits including: an increase in the percentage of received Notices and the immediate introduction of a large number of employees from different sectors in the SIS with the problems that arise in the process of invoicing, delivery and payment of water irrigation charge by the farmers. Employees have become more aware of a very important segment of the work of the SIS - the way of collecting money, directly from which the financial viability of the company depends and among other things, their salary.