PESHAWAR, Feb 8: The NWFP government is mulling integrating the operations of Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) with Local Government and Rural Development Department (LG&RDD) and rehabilitating its water supply network in the province.

Officials told Dawn that NWFP Chief Secretary Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi on Thursday constituted two committees to work out a plan of action for making the PHED an effective entity.

Service delivery, said the officials, in the area of water supply had been affected badly since 2001, when the PHED was merged with Works and Services Department (W&SD).

International donor and lending agencies were pressing the government for taking remedial steps for improving the service delivery in this sector, the officials maintained.A committee, headed by the secretary W&SD, would prepare recommendations for setting up the PHED offices in the province and subsequently placing staff there, besides extending other logistic facilities.

Similarly, the secretary LG&RDD would head the other committee with representatives from finance, planning and development and chief engineer PHED as its members.

This committee has been given the task to make recommendations for integrating the PHED operations with the LG&RDD through Tehsil Municipal Administrations (TMAs) and categorisation of the areas.

The committee would also develop methodology for revenue collection and bridge financial gap relating to the function of water supply schemes.

Other tasks of the committee include rehabilitating the non-functional schemes, evolving an effective mechanism for utilising the PHED data and making cost-estimation of the overall exercise