KARACHI, Aug 29: The provincial environment department has forwarded 10 projects of NGOs for funding under the federal government run National Environment Action Plan (NEAP), it was learnt officially.

In all, the environment and alternative energy department had received 18 environment related projects from NGOs against an advertisement issued by the federal ministry of environment recently.

This is for the second time that the federal government invited application form NGOs under NEAP-Sub programme-6 (grassroots initiatives). First time applications were sent to the federal government about one and half year back, but projects could not be materialized for some technical reasons on the federal government side, said a source in the environment circle, adding that if every thing went in direction, the NGOs in Sindh would be provided collectively an amount to the tune of Rs6 million for different projects in about 9 districts, excluding Karachi district.

The NEAP-SP 6 focuses on strengthening and enhancing abilities of local development institutions including both government and NGOs/CBOs to implement environmental management and poverty reduction initiatives, which are innovative in nature and are in those geographical areas which cannot be covered by any other major project.

According to a press release issued by the Sindh Environ-mental Protection Agency, an evaluation and monitoring committee of the Sindh environment department selected 10 projects for funding, after analyzing their feasibility and technical viability.