Officials directed to timely complete de-silting drive

PESHAWAR: Minister for Irrigation Arshad Ayub Khan on Friday directed the relevant officials to timely complete the de-silting of the canals.

An official handout said the minister, at a meeting, directed the officials to dispose of the silt removed from the canals in a manner that it did not affect the environment.

Secretary Irrigation Nizamuddin and other officials attended the meeting. He said the monitoring teams should start sending reports on a daily basis. He directed them to formulate a timely action plan for the coming year.

In view of the weather conditions, he directed the officials to prepare different schedule about closure of canals in different areas.

The minister was briefed about the funds allocated for canal desilting campaign, sanitation plan, monitoring teams and use of technology in monitoring.

During the briefing, the minister was informed about the circle-wise progress. He was informed that the canals were closed from January 10 for the canal cleaning campaign.

He was told that a total of Rs400 million had been allocated for this campaign and monitoring teams had been formed to monitor the campaign.