Thai PM chairs water management meeting

BANGKOK, April 16 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra chaired a meeting of the National Water Resources and Flood Policy Committee at Bangkok's Government House on Monday, aimed at accelerating state budgets earlier allocated to the panel and to support water management plans. The meeting was held in a bid to follow up water management plans in details, as well as budgets for the committee and three-million-rai government-designated water retaining areas during the upcoming monsoon season and Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry measures in compensating affected land owners. Thai Science and Technology Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi, who chairs the committee, told journalists before the meeting that separate state budgets amounting 20 billion baht, 350 billion baht and 120 billion baht which have been allocated to various relevant projects and have been encountered problems would be discussed at the meeting. Plodprasop said that other major measures which would be discussed at the meeting include projects falling under eight flood prevention measures and the improvement of Thailand's disaster warning systems, following a strong 8.6-magnitude earthquake striking off the Sumatra Island in Indonesia last Wednesday, triggering a tsunami alert for the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, Premier Yingluck plans to, again, follow up government-sponsored water management projects for upstream, midstream and downstream areas in either late this month or early next month, as some of the projects are scheduled to be complete in May, after Thailand was hit by a massive flooding late last year with more than 800 related fatalities. (TNA)