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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
THE Government is in the process of establishing an irrigation scheme in Lupane that will utilise water from the Bubi-Lupane Dam.

The dam, situated less than 5km from Lupane, the capital of Matabeleland North province, is the largest in the province with a capacity of 40 million cubic-metres.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Department has identified a piece of land near Shabula Village, about 7km from the dam site to establish the irrigation scheme.

Irrigation Engineer Tapiwanashe Gumbo told The Chronicle that construction work would start this year with the completion of the project dependent on availability of funds.

He said funding for the project would come from Government.

“Several meetings have been held with stakeholders who include villagers, traditional and political leaders as we are basically at the planning stage,” Eng Gumbo said.

“Construction work will start this year as we earmark Government programmes that come through the Ministry.”

Eng Gumbo said 200 hectares of land was already in place but the number of beneficiaries would only be known later.

He said their plan was to have a sustainable irrigation model and most of the beneficiaries would be those whose fields fall within the earmarked land.

No people will be displaced to pave way for the project at least for now, Eng Gumbo said.

“Land was identified when the dam project was approved. Now we are just implementing that. There won’t be any movement of people as the plan is to have minimal disturbance of homesteads.

“We haven’t finalised the number of beneficiaries because we want to come up with a sustainable and commercially viable irrigation model and we don’t want beneficiaries to have say like half a hectare which won’t bring value to them. We are looking at people whose fields will be affected to benefit first,” said Eng Gumbo.

The Bubi-Lupane Dam was built to provide domestic and irrigation water to Lupane District.

It is expected to provide employment opportunities and sustain livelihoods of communities around it and in the province.

@ncubeleon