Gov’t in Bucharest OKs list of irrigation facilities that will be re-classified as public utility

The Romanian government on Wednesday Okayed the list of irrigation facilities that will be re-classified as public utility. At the same time, the national program for the rehabilitation of the main irrigation infrastructure will receive until 2027 as much as EUR 1.5 billion in allocations from the national budget.

“The list of irrigation facilities was approved that will be re-classified as public utility, as well as the modification of the national program for the rehabilitation of Romania’s main irrigation infrastructure worth a total of 1.5 billion euros, which represent the total allocations from the national budget until 2027. Concretely, this financing will increase the economic viability of the irrigation systems,” the government’s spokesperson Dan Carbunaru told a press conference.

The gov’t spokesman also announced that new irrigation systems would be built by increasing the number of projects from 101 to 189, as plans are afoot to expand Romania’s irrigated surface from 1.8 million hectares to 2.6 million hectares.

According to Carbunaru, 50 drainage facilities will be built for 695,000 hectares of land and the number of irrigation facilities will increase from 89, including the Siret-Baragan Canal – now in stage I, to 156.

The government’s spokesperson specified that the modification of the implementation period of the national irrigation program until the end of 2027 will complement the programming in the National Strategic Plan, and 500 million euros in European money will be available for investments in the secondary irrigation infrastructure and in farm irrigation systems.