PESHAWAR, April 17: The NWFP government has sought Rs112 million grant from Japan to prepare a feasibility report for a project to provide drinking water supply from Warsak Dam to the provincial capital.
Sources in the works and services department told Dawn that
PC-II of the scheme had been prepared and the department required Rs112 million for preparing the project report.
They said the Japanese government had expressed willingness to provide grant-in-aid for the scheme and PC-II of the project had been forwarded to the economic affairs division for discussion with the donor country.
An official said the provincial government had asked the Indus River System Authority to approve supplying about 250 cusecs of water from the Kabul River through pipelines.
The provincial government had prepared the plan in 1998 to bring water from Kabul River through underground pipelines to meet shortage of drinking water in the capital and its surrounding areas.
The government had allocated Rs20 million in 2003-4 and 2004-5 budgets for the feasibility study of the project.
The sources said the amount allocated for the feasibility project was inadequate and the department concerned had requested the government to obtain funds from foreign donors for the purpose.
City Nazim Haji Ghulam Ali, however, claimed that the feasibility report and other formalities had been completed and the government would float the tenders soon.
He said the project would cost Rs10 billion and the provincial government had constituted a committee for awarding the contract.
He claimed that Chinese experts had prepared a feasibility report of the project.
The sources said the district government had discussed the scheme with the Beijing-based Urban Construction International Engineering Company, whose representatives had examined the site recently.
According to the project’s PC-II, two parallel pipelines would be laid down between Warsak and Peshawar to supply roughly 60 million gallons of water daily.
The water would be fetched partly through gravity flow and partly through a pumping system. The length of each pipeline will be 36km.
Presently, the city government and cantonment board supply up to 31.68 million gallons of drinking water daily to 124 million inhabitants of the provincial capital, who face a shortfall of 4.32 million gallons daily.