PESHAWAR, May 30: The NWFP Urban Development Project (NUDP), a newly-formed civic agency, has identified seven urban towns having more than 20,000 population to share their burden in execution of water supply schemes, sewerage and sanitation courses, drainage system, solid waste management and link roads network.

This was announced by NUDP Deputy Secretary Ghulam Yazdani at the 6th annual roundtable meeting on sustainable environment here at a hotel on Thursday.

The meeting was jointly organised by the Local Government and Rural Development Department and Sarhad Provincial Conservative Strategy Support Unit. The previous roundtable meeting was held in Feb 2001, which mainly stressed on the solid waste management.

He said Charsadda, Mansehra, Hangu, Haripur, Swabi, Takhtbai and Timergara had been identified under phase-1 of the NUDP. The remaining 17 towns, district headquarters, would be identified according to the criteria agreed with the donor. The project would comprise the urban and community developments, he added.

The urban development, he said, would encompass infrastructure improvement, which include water supply, sewerage and sanitation, drainage, solid waste management and roads and local access.

He said the community development would focus on promoting a lasting cooperation and greater partnership between the local communities and local government’s institutions by establishing community-based organisations.

Under this project, he said, the government would spend Rs1,650 million in seven towns — all district headquarters. The NWFP government would dole out Rs396 million, while the Asian Development Bank would provide Rs1,155 million as loan for the execution of the projects in these urban towns, he added.

He said the local councils would have to share Rs99 million in their respective towns.

Highlighting the implementation mechanism, he said it would comprise three-tier system. The project steering committee (PSC) would be responsible for overall management of the NUDP, project coordination committee (PCR), comprising professional staff, would be responsible for overall coordination, planning and management of the project activities at the provincial level and project implementation committee (PIT), based at every town, would oversee sub-projects planning, designing and implementation, he added.

Prominent social worker Zahid Elahi also read his paper on the city development strategy (CDS). He recalled that he had launched the CDS in connection with Peshawar in July last year.

The CDS, Elahi said, involved participation and mobilisation of stakeholders, their consultation, strategy and implementation and follow-up and consolidation. The CDS was being financed by the World Bank and the United Nations Council for Human Settlement, he added.

Local Government and Rural Development Department Deputy Secretary Atiqur Rehman Wazir, IUCN Coordinator Arshad and others also spoke on the occasion.

Earlier, reviewing the decisions of the previous meeting, the participants stressed the need for each district having its own solid waste management unit. They regretted that Peshawar had been left at the mercy of encroachers.

The participants also reviewed the list of roundtable meeting members.