The Major Rural Water Supply project, which is being implemented by the National Water Commission (NWC), has been allocated a sum of $23 million in the 2004/05 Estimates of Expenditure, now before the House of Representatives.

The money will go towards completing engineering designs, ordering materials for projects, purchasing land for treatment plant and reservoir sites, and completing civil works.

Funded jointly by the European Union and the Government of Jamaica, the project, which began in November 1991, has the objectives of improving water supply in rural communities, the implementation of new systems, and the refurbishing of existing ones. The schemes targeted for rehabilitation are Milk River in Clarendon; Hope Bay, Portland; Christiana, Manchester and Shettlewood, Westmoreland.

Up to February 2004, a design engineer was contracted, engineering designs were 60 per cent completed and the civil works contract awarded.