ISLAMABAD, July 4: The government on Monday opened bids for the procurement of 300 bulldozers on supplier’s credit to bring about 219,375 hectares of wasteland under cultivation in Balochistan and NWFP.

The bulldozers are being procured under the project titled ‘Land and Water Resources Development for Poverty Reduction in Pakistan Phase-I’.

Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock Secretary Ismail Qureshi while supervising the bidding ceremony, said that the government had announced in the budget 2005-06 that it would supply 200 and 100 bulldozers to Balochistan and NWFP respectively. These would be utilized for development of land and water resources in the two provinces for poverty reduction.

He said that investors from Japan, Italy, Germany, Poland, Russia, China and India had shown keen interest after the ministry floated international tenders for the procurement of bulldozers on supplier’s credit.

He said the investors would supply 300 bulldozers under supplier credit during the first phase and they would set up plant for assembling and manufacturing of the bulldozers under indigenization programme including transfer of technology. The country required more than 1,200 bulldozers, he said.

Mr Qureshi said the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) had earlier approved the project with a cost of Rs2.4 billion in December last year.

A technical committee formed by the government would scrutinize these bids and only technically successful bids would be evaluated further for financial terms and conditions, he said.