PESHAWAR, Oct 12: The civil secretariat of Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (Fata) is currently holding negotiations with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for financial assistance for the construction of the Shalman Drinking Water Supply Scheme (DWSS) in Landi Kotal, Khyber Agency.

The Fata Chief Engineer for Development, Tariq Saeed said in an interview that the Ecnec has revived the Shalman DWSS project with revised estimates of Rs.560 million in September.

“We are looking for the potential donors to fund the mega project as it could not be executed from the Fata’s block allocations. Currently the civil secretariat of Fata is engaged in talks with the ADB for obtaining their support in the construction of Shalman project to fulfill the clean drinking water requirement of Khyber Agency,” he maintained. The Ecnec has directed the Fata civil secretariat to construct the said scheme from its block allocations, he added.

Replying to a question, the chief engineer said the ADB had expressed conditional willingness to go ahead with the project provided the Operational and Management (O&M) cost of the project after completion is borne by the beneficiary. The annual O&M charges of the project was estimated at Rs 30 to Rs 34 million as it involved three stages, he said.

From engineering point of view Shalman drinking water scheme could be executed, he said, its financial feasibility, O&M cost, the number of beneficiary have to be evaluated before taking the project in hand.

He said other water sources in Khyber Agency situated in Ali Masjid and Landi Kotal had been recharged but did not have enough water to meet the requirements of the inhabitants. In Land Kotal, he said the possibility of sinking tube wells has increased after recharging of the aquifer and efforts underway to tap the water source.

Answering to another question, he said demand for clean drinking water in Khyber Agency was higher than the supply.

In Karak district, he said, drinking water tubewells were being sunk conditionally that the local village organisations would bear the annual maintenance charges. If the local population did not give undertaking about the same, then it was very difficult for the government to bear the maintenance charges after sinking of the tubewells every year. Still the government bore operational charges of a number of tubewells constructed earlier, he informed.

He said presently the gigantic inter-agency road project had been shelved. In the current Fata ADP 2006-07, he said, Rs 1.78 billion had been earmarked for improving communication network in tribal areas, Rs 310 million for public health engineering scheme, Rs 1.3 billion for education and Rs 558 million for health projects.—APP