ISLAMABAD: Mission Director John Groarke for US Agency for International Development (USAID) has said that the Gomal Zam Irrigation Project will create job opportunities for 30,000 households in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
Talking to Voice of America (VOA), he said the $72 million project, which began in 2011, was now providing year-round irrigation water for 191,000 acres land in Tank and Dera Ismail Khan districts of KP.
Through its network of 265 kilometers of irrigation canals, which were built in collaboration with the Water and Power Development Authority, the project would increase business, trade, and employment opportunities for 30,000 households, he added.
He said British engineers first conceived the Gomal Zam Dam and irrigation scheme in the second half of the 19th century, and preliminary planning to build the dam began in the 1960s.
In 2009, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the US government support to complete the dam to support power generation, irrigation, and flood control, he said.
He said that the first phase of this project, the construction of the Gomal Zam dam in South Waziristan, was completed in 2013 with the funding from the United States and the Government of Pakistan.
The dam now generated 17.4 megawatts of electricity and could store up to 1.14 million acre feet of water, he added.
