Completed in October 2002, the 150-odd-km-long Kaechon-Lake Thaesong Waterway is a gravitational waterway system for irrigating the fields in the western coastal area, a bread basket of the DPRK.
With a far-reaching plan to establish a gravity-fed irrigation system in the major granary, Chairman Kim Jong Il initiated a project designed to irrigate the paddy fields in South Phyongan Province and Pyongyang.
While dispatching officials to the relevant areas to make a detailed topographical survey, he lent an ear to the opinions of broad sections of farmers so as to work out a plan for the new irrigation system.
In the course of this, he reached the conclusion that the problem of water in the region should be solved by building a gravitational irrigation system, not by relying on pumping machines as in the past.
Thus the construction project got off to a start.
He went over the completed design and referred to the issues concerning the preparations for the project. In February 2000, he issued an order in the name of the then DPRK National Defence Commission on launching the project by enlisting the entire Party, the whole country and all the people.
He often acquainted himself with the progress of the project and solved all problems arising in it.
He visited the construction site one day in April 2001, when he said repeatedly that the project had made much headway and the soldier-builders had done a great deal of work and that it was really great. That night he called a senior official of the relevant sector to indicate the orientation and way for unconditionally finishing the project within the set time.
At last the project, comprising over a hundred kilometre-long earth canals and hundreds of structures of various kinds including scores of tunnels and large siphons, was successfully completed in a little over two years.
The waterway irrigates nearly 100 000 hectares of paddy fields in Pyongyang and South Phyongan Province, rendering great service to improving the agricultural production and the people’s living standards in the region.
Kim Hyok
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