P800B farm-to-market road projects eyed
By Nidz Godino
"Originally, it will take 40 years to implement almost one million irrigable lands in the country, but I told President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. we can do it in 10 years as long as we have support of other agencies," National Irrigation Administration (NIA) Administrator Benny Antiporda said government will tap public-private partnership (PPP) to implement P800 billion farm-to-market (FMR) projects of the government.
Under PPP program, private companies will finance various FMR projects in 10 years.
He stressed preparations are now being done to roll out PPP program.
"The NIA already began its efforts toward application of PPP initially by constituting special committee to invite known experts to transfer technical knowledge to the officials and employees," Antiporda said.
The NIA is exploring addition of investment opportunities that might improve financial aspect of projects to be applied in PPP for reasonable return of investments (ROIs) to partner investors.
"The NIA has on its pipeline formulation of menu that would indicate potential investment opportunities, including aquaculture farming, hydro-electric power generation, floating solar panels in dams, covering irrigation canals with solar panels to both generate power and at the same minimize water evaporation, and possibility of bulk water distribution that might be integrated in each project," Antiporda said.
The NIA will ask help of allied agencies, including Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources for aquaculture farming, the Department of Energy for hydro-electric and solar power, and the National Water Resources Board for bulk water distribution to address all matters relating to the implementation of PPP projects.
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