Today, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Agricaltural and Land Policy unanimously supported the draft law №5202 "On Water Users’ Organization and promotion of hydraulic reclamation of land" after amendments, which was sent to the parliament for revision.

The draft law partially took into account the proposals of the Main Scientific and Expert Department of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and People's Deputies. In particular, the document stipulates that membership in WUO will be terminated if a member of the organization transfers its land plots that are a part of the organization's service area to another person. The WUO is also obliged to include in the territory of its service neighboring plot according to the request of its owner (user) in case of excess capacity of the pumping station and the capacity of the organization’s reclamation network. However, WUO will not have the right to provide water abstraction services from the point of abstraction and its delivery to the owner (user) of the land plot if he does not have a permit for special water use, etc.

However, the committee did not support the proposal that each owner (user) of land has one vote.

"The bill contains a serious system of blocking the seizure of irrigation systems by large agricultural companies, which they want to show as a shortcoming. This is the prescribed system of voting in decision-making. In particular, the document sets out the principle for voting - one member, one vote. However, any decision must be supported not only by this principle, but also by those who cultivate most of the land. This was done specifically so that with the help of fictitious division of companies and land plots, a group of fraudsters could not seize control over WUO with the help of such a manipulation,” the UAC Deputy Chairman Mykhailo Sokolov explained.

A member of the UAC and AE “Adelaide” Chairman from Kherson region Serhii Rybalko, who also took part in the committee meeting, notified that a lot of work on the bill had been done.

"Enormous work related to the clarification of various articles of the bill, coordination of positions with government agencies - the State Land Committee, the State Property Fund. Remarks and suggestions were heard from deputies who did not agree with the draft bill, but in the end all voted "yes" with the proposal to return to the amendments in the second reading," Serhii Rybalko said.

In addition, as part of the Potato Day, which will be held on August 27 at the farm "Adelaide", a round table on the development of irrigation and, in particular, the draft bill 5202 will be held.

It will be recalled that the draft law on WUO, which is registered in the parliament, will allow farmers to accelerate the modernization of the irrigation system.