July 22, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 25, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, July 21: The federal and provincial governments on Friday agreed to launch a Rs30 billion flood protection programme which will be completed over the next 10 years.

Sources told Dawn that a meeting, presided over by the chairman of the Federal Flood Programme and attended by provincial irrigation secretaries, also decided to approach multilateral lenders like the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank to provide $200 million for the programme.

The meeting was, however, not confident if the two lenders would fund the project because of their past experience. The ADB had cancelled last year a $100 million loan to Pakistan for the second flood protection project because of the inordinate delay in the implementation of schemes under the project.

The World Bank, too, had diverted about $100 million loan from the National Drainage Programme to poverty reduction programmes owing to bad performance of the federal and provincial governments towards implementation of drainage schemes.

The meeting asked the provinces and special areas to submit their 10-year flood management schemes to the ministry of water and power immediately for approval.

The meeting agreed to allocate Rs11 billion for flood management schemes in Punjab, Rs8 billion in Sindh, Rs3 billion in NWFP, Rs2.5 billion in Balochistan, Rs1 billion in Fata and Rs500 million each in the Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas.

The sources said Rs3.5 billion was allocated for the Met Office and the Wapda to improve their flood forecasting system and communication system for early flood warning respectively.

The Met Office would set up six radar systems — two each in Balochistan and Sindh and one each in the NWFP and Northern Areas. The meeting asked all the provinces to prepare comprehensive and equipped flood protection plan on long term basis for protection of lives and property of the people during the flood season.