Economic Transformation Initiative a seven-year development program of Govt. of Gilgit-Baltistan, co-funded by IFAD with a total cost of Rs. 12 billion to boost regional economic activity through agriculture value-chain development. The program aims at improving income, reducing poverty and malnutrition in the rural area of Gilgit-Baltistan. The specific objectives are to improve production and productivity by bringing in additional 50,000 acres of irrigated land benefiting around 100,000 small landholders including women and landless; improving connectivity to market through construction and updating 400 km of farm to market roads and promotion of demand-driven value chains of regional products.
The program follows a holistic and community-driven approach that is pro-poor and gender/youth nutrition sensitive. the value chain component aimed at providing comprehensive and mutually supportive solutions to current challenges in developing main cash crops of the region. Through a process of social mobilization, communities will be linked with government extension & research and private sector services by enhancing their require capacities.
This component is aimed at substantially increasing the current irrigated area in the target districts and providing improved access to markets through upgraded road links. This critical component of the programmes covers 60% of the base cost consists of two subcomponents; a) Irrigation and Land Development (ILD) that aims at developing 70,000 additional acres of irrigation in all 10 districts of GB region through implementing irrigation and land development schemes b) Farm to Market Road (FMR) aiming at improving critical road linkage for the supported value chains for linking the production areas to valley roads and main roads. The sub-component focuses on upgradation/construction of 600 km of shingle compacted roads and span of 300-meter bridges. Under the component, 78 ILD schemes with a total command area of over 42,600 and 384.6 kms of FMRs have been constructed. A total of 28 ILD schemes with a command area of over 16,800 and FMRs 21 with cumulative length of 122 kms schemes have been approved and are at various stages of implementation.