IMPHAL, June 11: The state Foreign Investment Board (FIB) in a recent meeting held under the chairmanship of chief secretary DS Poonia has decided that the state planning department should support implementation of various projects under the Externally Aided Project (EAP) with fundings from Japan International Cooperation Agency or other external funding agencies.
According to an official source, the decision was taken during the meeting of the board which was conveyed to review the progress of implementation of Augmentation of Water Supply for Imphal City by 45 MLD with water from Thoubal Dam under EAP.
The official meeting was attended by principal secretary (PHED) WL Hangshing, commissioner (Finance) Vivek K Dewangan, special secretary (Planning) Dr Sajjad Hassan, addl chief engineer, (PHED) H Sunil Singh, SE (PHED) Th. Lokeshwar Singh and jt director planning Y Indramani Singh.
The same source has further stated that after due presentation of comments and documents by the concerned representatives of the line departments, the meeting further decided that the state should produced its matching share amounting to around Rs. 5-7 crores out of the total estimated cost of Rs. 65 crores for the new EAP project regarding water scarcity in Imphal city, which is expected to be completed in six years.
The special secretary state Planning, Dr Sajjad Hassan during the recent meeting laid more emphasis on the need of the planning department to ascertain from the department of external affairs whether the JICA, which is a Japan based agency, would scale down its projects in the country and the state as its own host country was recently affected by a Tsunami, stated the source.
However he informed the meeting that on his enquiry with the jt sec, DEA who is in charge of bilateral cooperation between the two countries, the jt sec had revealed that scaling down of project funding in the country by the Japanese agency is not expected at the moment and also added that it is expected to be finalized by the final meeting between the DEA and the Japanese agency in late June, the source added.
The meeting also further noted that the PHED has been submitting DPRs to the DoNER ministry and other central ministries without processing it through the state Planning department for Externally Aided Projects and as such the FIB has advised both the principal secretary (PHED) and chief engineer (PHED) to ensure that all correspondence in respect of EAP proposals is routed through Planning department to enable a coordinated approach, the meeting observed.