February 4, 2002	Monday	Ziqa’ad 20, 1422

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 3: The federal government is contemplating to finalize a medium-term “water sector strategy” to seek foreign and local investment in all projects including, drinking, flood control, irrigation and power generation.

Sources in the Federal Flood Commission told Dawn that a 10-year investment plan was being drawn up at present with the technical and financial assistance of the Asian Development Bank.

This plan would be supported by the forthcoming five-year plan and annual budgetary allocations both at federal and provincial level.

“The exact quantum of investment required over the 10-year period would be clear by February 17, but obviously this would run into billions of dollars and would cover everything that has any link with water,” said an official involved in the preparation of the investment plan.

A high-level meeting of donors and federal and provincial water sector agencies has been convened on February 7 to prioritize the projects and expected funding programme.

This would be followed by another meeting on February 17 of all the stake-holders including agriculturists, farmers, consumer groups and technical experts, the sources said.

A special meeting to be presided over by the president and attended by provincial governors and irrigation ministers tentatively on Feb 25 would be given a detailed briefing for final fine tuning and approval, said the sources.

The water sector investment would be announced by the end of this month along with a 25-year National Water Policy that sets out long-term policy objectives of the country to conserve, preserve and streamline the water utilization through better management.