10-year plan: CCI reviews flood protection plan today

ISLAMABAD: The 10-year National Flood Protection Plan 2015-2025 worth Rs332.246 billion will be presented before the Council of Common Interest (CCI) on Friday (today).

The CCI meeting will be presided over by the Prime Minister.

An official privy to this development, who wished not to be named, said that the CCI will approve the flood protection plan if the provincial governments accepted it without any reservation.



He said that the plan was delayed since 2007 mainly because of lack of interest of the authorities concerned.

“Since 2007, Pakistan has been facing devastating floods just because of the absence of such a plan … It is estimated that floods had caused monetary losses running into $18 billion to the national exchequer during the 2010-2015 period,” he said.

“Over the same period, the cost of the plan increased from Rs177,661 million to Rs332,246 million, including additional Rs154,586 million required by the provinces,” he said.

Earlier, he said, the plan was previously presented before the CCI on February 29 and March 22 this year, but it was returned to the federal government, asking it to complete the consultative process by addressing the reservations of Sindh and K-P governments in this regard,” he said.



“Both provincial governments are claiming that they were not consulted when the plan was formulated,” he said. Moreover, some provincial government officials also claim that the flood protection plan had been formulated without carrying out any research or conducting a field survey.

“There are some major concerns over the construction of dams under this plan,” said the official.

Meanwhile, the chief of the Met Office said: “Being a water-stressed country, there is a need to preserve surplus water Pakistan has during floods to address future water shortages.”

He said that Pakistan will start conserving water once the flood protection plan was approved and implemented.