ISLAMABAD, Jan 21: The government has decided to construct 20 small dams in the NWFP by 2010 at a cost of Rs3.6 billion, it is learnt.

Official sources told Dawn on Saturday that the Planning Commission had proposed to the government to make available Rs3.6 billion from the Public Sector Development Programme to undertake the construction of these dams during the current financial year.

Sources said that construction of these dams would be carried out along with the construction of five major dams, including Bhasha.

The Small Dams Organization Irrigation and Power Department of the NWFP will be the executing agency of these projects. The objective of building these dams is to provide irrigation water to maximum farmlands and help farmers switch over to cultivation of high-value cash crops.

The total area of the NWFP is 25.4 million acres, out of which only 6.55 million acres are cultivable. At present, an area of 2.27 million acres is irrigated through canals, tubewells, lift irrigation schemes and civil canal system.

The federal government believes that further construction of surface flow irrigation schemes, which are economically viable, will not be beneficial. Similarly, lift/tubewell irrigation is not economically viable due to high power tariff.

Therefore, the only option left is to construct small dams for storing rain- and flood-water and to utilize the same for bringing more and more acres under irrigation.

The Planning Commission has agreed that small dams can be constructed for storage of floodwater. In the flood situation, hill torrents cause damage to human lives. With the construction of small dams, the flood flow will be arrested for its useful utilization.

In places where conditions are not suitable for construction of storage reservoirs, delay action dams can be built for recharging the underground water aquifer. The drought that hit the country in recent past also hit the water scarce areas in the province. The crops failed and even drinking water was not available which forced local population to migrate.