ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday advised the government to complete under-construction small dams on war footings, as it would not only help in the development of land and water resources, but would also generate employment opportunities for the poor besides distribution of state lands of the command areas amongst the poor women.
He expressed these views during a presentation given to him here at the Presidency on progress made so far in building small and medium dams in various parts of the country.
The presentation was attended by Salman Faruqi, secretary general to the president, Syed Murad Ali Shah, Sindh minister for finance, Jam Saifullah Dharejo, Sindh minister for irrigation, senior officials of the concerned federal and provincial departments, WAPDA chairman Shakil Durrani and the president’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar.
In line with the vision of the president to concentrate on building a number of small-to-medium-sized dams in the country to save precious water resources for their optimum utilisation, the presentation was in continuity of the previous meetings held to review the progress made so far in this regard.
The president during the meeting emphasised on the adoption of sprinkler irrigation and solar pumps irrigation. He said the government had envisioned taking advantage of public-private partnership in such projects to ensure efficiency, effective monitoring and early completion of the projects.
He said that the government was tapping all available resources to ensure requisite financing for these projects.
The president was informed that financial assistance of $700 million from Exim Bank of China had been arranged and 200,000 acres of land would come under command areas of the three dams – Derawat, Nai Gaj and Naulong. The president hoped that the involvement of Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) and Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR) China, being the specialised organisations, would help in utilising full benefits of small and medium dam projects.
