Khanpur Dam Water Supply Project: MoD seeks Rs 200m in PSDP 09-10 to launch Phase-II

[LahoreEstate]

By Aamir Yasin

RAWALPINDI: The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has requested the federal government for allocation of Rs200 million in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2009-10 to launch the third phase of Khanpur Dam Water Supply Project (KDWSP) to meet the future water requirements of Rawalpindi Cantonment.

Sources told Daily Times on Monday that the ministry had also requested the government to allocate Rs 35.784 million for construction of A-I category houses for security personnel and general officers at the Ministry of Defence Production, Secretariat No II, Rawalpindi.

The construction of [A-I category] houses for security personnel and two A-I category houses for the general officers is estimated to cost 17.415 million and Rs18.365 million respectively.

The sources said that the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) had on April 8, 2006 approved the third phase of the project estimated to cost around Rs700 million.

However, the Finance Ministry allocated Rs 100 million in the fiscal year 2008-2009 but could release only Rs 27 million citing financial crunch.

They said Rs 3 million were released in November 2008 and Rs24 million just two weeks ago for the third phase of project.

At present, the cantonment is getting nine million gallons of water per day (MGDs) from Khanpur Dam and six MGDs from tube wells against the daily requirement of 20 MGDs.

The sources said that many areas of the cantonment being fed by tube wells were facing shortage of water, which will increase in the coming days because the water table was receding at the rate of one to two meters annually.

According to the approved plan, a 20,942 meter water supply line would be laid down in the cantonment and 10 overhead water tanks, having a storage capacity of 0.2 million gallons each, would be constructed in different areas.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...009_pg11_1