ISLAMABAD, April 13: Federal Secretary Environment Khalid Latif Chaudhry has said rules should be modified to ensure judicious utilisation of funding in the implementation of the ministry’s projects.

He stated this while presiding over the 6th meeting of the National Environmental Action Plan Support Programme (NEAP-SP)’s steering committee. The meeting also approved the annual work plan 2006 for the programme.

Besides reviewing the progress of various ongoing projects, the meeting considered and finalised various new projects.

The secretary environment informed the meeting that from the next year, the work plan should be approved before beginning of the work year, preferably in October-November, to avoid delay in release of funds and implementation activities.

The meeting also reviewed the implementation status of various schemes including environmental education promotion project, sustainable land management, green industry project and establishment of national botanical garden phase-1.

NEAP-SP is an umbrella project worth $42 million which has been initiated by the ministry in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme to facilitate implementation of national environmental action plan, addressing the core environmental issues.