PNS — The Aquino administration has firmed up plans to set in motion starting in 2013 three giant dams with a combined cost of P38 billion, according to the National Irrigation Administration.
One of the projects, the Balog-Balog project costing P16 billion, will serve farmers in President Aquino’s home province of Tarlac and neighboring Zambales, Antonio Nangel, NIA administrator, said.
Work on the Balog-Balog dam will begin in the third quarter of 2011, Nangel said. It is programmed to generate irrigation to 20,000 hectares of farmlands and serve 20,000 hectares of farms in Nueva Ecija and Pampanga.
Together with the Balintingon multi-purpose irrigation project in Nueva Ecija-Bulacan area and the Mal-Mar irrigation project in Mindanao, the dams will boost rice production in a combined area of 250,000 hectares and help curb or do away with rice imports, Nangel said.
The P16-billion Balintingon project covering the eastern portion of Nueva Ecija and Bulacan will start construction in two years’ time. It will irrigate some 18,800 hectares Nangel said.
The P6.9-billion Mal-Mar Project, as approved last December 20 by the National Economic Development Authority, is programmed to irrigate 9,700 hectares in Maguindanao and Cotabato. Project construction will start in 2012, he said.
Financing for the three dams will come from foreign loans and grants, Nangel said.
He said that the government is on track to meet its 2013 target, particularly with the completion of the San Roque Dam which will potentially irrigate 20,000 hectares which he said, is considered the agency’s single biggest accomplishment in 2010.
NIA also has on-going projects in Visayas and Mindanao which President Aquino and Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala have declared as priority.