THE prime minister was yesterday urged to reconsider building the Mae Wong Dam — and lease land to local people to dig reservoirs to fight the serious drought.

It is estimated that water in Ubonrat Dam in Khon Kaen province will last for only another 40 days.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha visited Uthai Thanim province, accompanied by the Agriculture and Cooperatives, Interior, and Natural Resources and Environment ministers, to inspect the drought situation and distribute 400 rai of unused land to local people.

During the inspection, Irrigation Department director general Suthep Noipairoj urged reconsideration of the Mae Wong Dam project to tackle the drought.

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He said the dam could store up to 258 million cubic metres of water and will benefit 13,749 families and irrigate 126,545 rai of land in the dry season.

The PM ordered the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry to gather previous ideas on the project and said it must be clearly established that the loss of the forest would be made up for by increased irrigation of land, and if not, the dam could be built in another area.

“If someone still opposes everything, nothing will happen. The dam study will need to be coherent and NGOs will be invited to join the study to ensure good understanding on all sides,” Prayut said.

Regarding the idea to create more water reservoirs, he said he wanted provinces to lease land from people to build the reservoirs for the dry season. He said he would ask relevant agencies to study the laws related to this policy.

He insisted that this policy is aimed at creating local water supply and no land would be seized by the state.

Prayut also said rice could not be grown across more land because the irrigation system could not be expanded beyond 40 per cent of the country.

He asked farmers to change their practices.

“We need to organise farming across the country, or the farmers will suffer more burden,” he said.

“I want to ask the farmers not to plant rice in areas short of water.

“We now have limited water |supply and we need to take care of everyone, not just a single group of people.”

As the drought situation was getting worse in this dry season, the director of hydroelectricity power plants in the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand’s Northeast Region, Worawit Rawinipaphong, revealed that available water in Ubonrat Dam in Khon Kaen would be used up by early April.

“Water for consumption from the dam could last for only around 40 days, but we would like to ask the people not to panic, because we still have around 581 million cubic metres of water at the bottom of the dam to use,” Worawit said.

“However, I would like to warn that we have to carefully manage this water because if we use it up, we will have no water left until the rains come,” the Egat official for the Northeast warned.