US to provide aid for pakistan projects

Islamabad: The US will be providing 330 million dollars assistance for various projects in the country. While 30 million-dollar assistance will be for energy efficiency and energy conservation, 300 million dollars for technical assistance and clean water initiatives in Pakistan.

US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson announced this at a high level meeting chaired by Federal Minister for Environment Hameedullah Jan Afridi. Addressing the participants, who included high officials of Ministry of Environment, National Energy Conservation Centre (Enercon) and US Embassy, Afridi said that the regulatory and enforcement mechanism had been put in place for tackling the environmental issues at Federal and provincial level.

He said that under Islamabad Green City Programme, launched by the ministry, there was plan to relocate the industries of I-9 sectors to some other suitable location. The minister said that the reason behind relocating the I-9 sector was that this industrial area housed eight steel furnaces, which emitted more than one ton of particulate matter each day, which, no doubt, was affecting the health of the residents badly.

Afridi maintained that the signing of memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the US government would help formulate comprehensive plans and programme to tackle industrial, air and marine pollution in Pakistan.

He said that the ministry would declare the 2009 as the national year of environment on the special event of World Environment Day. The minister told the US Ambassador that Enercon was established with the financial assistance of the US government. He appreciated the US assistance in the areas of energy conservation and forestry sector development, particularly during 1960 and 1990.

It was also emphasised that the recent report of the World Bank estimates that annual cost of environmental degradation is Rs 365 billion per year or a billion per day, which amounts to six percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

The US Ambassador told participants that the US experts on die-safety and bio-security would be visiting Pakistan soon to interact with the Ministry of Environment to seek further cooperation in the areas of environment. She said that she would expedite the progress on the MoU as per understanding reached in the previous meetings.