Over the past two years, 22 trillion soums ($1.8 billion) have been provided from the budget for water management, including about 1 trillion of subsidies ($81 million) in Uzbekistan for water-saving technologies. This became known during the government meeting chaired by president on October 20.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev pointed to the importance of increasing allocations for concreting irrigation canals and introducing water-saving technologies. In particular, in 2024 it is planned to implement water infrastructure projects worth 1.7 trillion soums ($139.2 million), as well as $300 million from international financial organizations.

He announced that a three-year program for concreting canals would be adopted.

It is emphasized that a “breakthrough” in agriculture is impossible without innovation. In this regard, he instructed to increase the yield of cotton to 50 centners per hectare, grain - up to 100 centners per hectare through the widespread use of modern scientific achievements in the field of soil science, breeding and agricultural technology.

It should be noted that as of January 1, 2023, Uzbekistan drew $2.54 billion in public debt to agriculture and water management.

Minister of Water Resources Shavkat Khamrayev noted that the ineffective operation of irrigation systems was due to insufficient concreting of canals, which causes a loss of about 40% of water during irrigation.

“Of course, the president criticized the waste of about 6-6.5 billion cubic meters of water. We will, of course, draw conclusions from critical statements. Special attention was paid to concreting the channels. Instructions have been given to governors and the entire water management system to carry out concreting of over 300 such canals,” he said.

According to him, today in Uzbekistan water-saving technologies are used on an area of 1.2 million hectares, it is planned to annually expand this figure by 300-400 thousand hectares and increase the use of water-saving technologies to 2 million hectares by 2030.

Shavkat Khamraev noted that, together with the Australian company Rubicon, digitalization of channel management has been introduced in the Kasbi and Kamashi districts of the Kashkadarya province. Currently, 26 locations are operated online, he said.

“We have to expand this. To do this, we must attract investments from China and other developed countries, international financial institutions and completely digitize our industry,” he said.

“In general, we see how important these instructions are. “I want to assure the distinguished president and dear people that all specialists and employees of the water management system are using all their strength, knowledge and energy to accomplish these tasks,” he said.