Filtered By: Money
Money

Govt, private groups sign P60-B PPP water project


The government has signed a multi-agency partnership with the private sector for a P60-billion water project, involving the construction of three new dams in Isabela province, under the Public-Private Sector Partnership program (PPP) of the Aquino administration. The departments of Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources, and Agrarian Reform, as well as the provincial government of Isabela, National Convergence Initiative, Corn Board, SN Aboitiz Power, Uy Gongco Group, and Philippine Maize Federation, last week signed the papers covering the project, an industry source privy to the negotiations said in an interview Tuesday. The project aims to develop at least 60,000 hectares of new farmland for rice production and other commercial crops, said the source who requested anonymity as he was not allowed to discuss the project with the media. “The government wanted to attain sufficiency status by 2010. They wanted to arrest the 1.5 million metric tons (MT) shortfall in rice production," the industry source said. Corn farmers should take advantage of the opportunity to plant corn after the rice fields have been harvested, he said. The dams will be built in the municipalities of San Agustin, San Mariano and Tumauini, all in the province of Isabela The integrated water system is expected to generate as much as 50 megawatts of power to be sold to the Luzon grid, which will be handled by SN Aboitiz. “While the dam releases water for irrigation it will also create electricity that can be exported to other parts of the grid that need additional power," the source said. Part of the blueprint for the project is the creation of smaller catch basin or watershed that will gather excess water from the major dam. “It is a flood control mechanism that we included in the blueprint. So, there will be a major dam and another smaller dam to store excess water. This will render the country more prepared [with] the fast-shift from climate invariability to climate change," said the source. The scheme was derived from the watershed technology developed by the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Institute director-general William Dar earlier said that a team of water experts from the Philippines’ Agriculture Department visited the campus last year to study the subsequent adoption of the watershed model developed by scientists from the institute. Part from irrigation, excess water from the dam can also be used for domestic purposes once it has been treated and evaluated as safe for human consumption. — VS, GMANews.TV

LOADING CONTENT