PESHAWAR, March 7: The NWFP government has decided to extend Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project (RWSSP) for another year, as the UK Department for International Development (DFID) has approved an additional grant of £800,000 for it.

With additional grant the total financial assistance from the DFID for this project will climb to £7.3 million and now it will be completed by Sept 2009. The project was supposed to be winded up by June 2008.

Following pledge from the donor agency the provincial government had also agreed to allocate counterpart funding for this project in the next Annual Development Programme (ADP), officials told Dawn.

The additional grant would allow the project managers to focus on capacity building of the tehsil municipal administrations (TMAs), community mobilisation, hygiene and sanitation, operation and maintenance of completed physical schemes and water quality monitoring of these schemes, the officials explained.

The project will also commission about 600 water and sanitation schemes for schools to provide adequate sanitation facilities for the students.