Premier Jiang Yi-huah today enjoined agencies to continue supervision of local-government flood-control efforts in order to ensure the efficacy of existing flood-prevention facilities, saying water control requires close collaboration between central and local administrations.
The premier made these remarks at today's Cabinet meeting after hearing a report from the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) on its revisions to the nation's river basin management plan (2014-2019), which is meant to carry on the nation's flood-prevention and water-management works.
The MOEA has revised some of the projects and budgets of the plan, originally approved December 20, 2013, to bring it in line with the special act governing the management of river basins which was promulgated by President Ma Ying-jeou January 29, 2014 and became effective early this year. The premier directed the MOEA and related ministries as well as local governments to proactively implement water-management tasks based on the revised scheme.
The river basin management plan will have a special budget of NT$66 billion (US$2.2 billion) over six years. Aside from examining past performance in flood control and water management, it will continue promoting varied strategies for and adopt macroscopic perspectives on flood-control and water-management works to augment their efficacy.
In consideration of the government's limited budget, land acquisition will be carried out through diverse means to lower land cost, and mechanisms for subsidy, competition and evaluation will be enacted. More pressing projects that do not involve acquiring land will be given priority for implementation.
The MOEA noted that the revised plan will help protect 320 square kilometers of flood-prone areas, increase the sewerage coverage rate by 2 percent, establish control over 12.6 million cubic meters of sand and debris, improve 78 kilometers of farm drainage lines and safeguard 34 square kilometers of aquaculture production areas.