Improvement of 5000 watercourses completed
By Adnan Rafique

ISLAMABAD—Federal Steering Committee Saturdaynoted with satisfaction that improvement of 5014 watercourses, against the target of 5000, had been completed during 2004-05.
An amount of Rs. 6 billion has been allocated for theimplementation of the Programme in PSDP 2005-06 and the meetingdecided to release funds for the first two quarters to the executing agencies in order to ensure smooth execution of the Programme in the country.
This was stated in a meeting of the Federal Steering Committee held here today to review the progress of implementation of President’s programme for improvement of Watercourses inPakistan. The meeting was chaired by Secretary, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock Muhammad Ismail Qureshi which was also attended by the Secretaries of Agriculture Department, ProjectDirectors of the Programme Management Units and Directors General of Water Management of all Provinces.
According to details as many as 2541 watercourses are to be constructed in Punjab, 255 in Sindh, 1265 in NWFP, 711 in Balochistan, 76 in AJ&K, 131 in FATA and 35 in FANA.
Punjab and NWFP Provinces has exceeded the targets fixed for them last year while a target of improvement of 15,050 Watercourses was fixed for all Provinces for the year 2005-06.
Progress in Sindh and Islamabad capital Territory was found to be slow they were advised to accelerate their efforts to achieve their objectives so that the farmers could benefit from the project by increased availability of water.