LAHORE - In the wake of recent floods that played havoc in the country, especially in Nowshera and Charsadda districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, WAPDA has decided to construct Munda Dam Project on the Swat River on priority basis. In a major move, Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority, in its meeting held on Friday, approved to invite Expression of Interest (EOI) for consultancy services for detailed engineering design and preparation of tender documents for the project. Munda Dam Project is proposed to be constructed on Swat River about five kilometers upstream of Munda Head Works in Mohmand Agency of FATA. It is a multi-purpose project with the objectives to control floods, ensure availability of irrigation water and provide low-cost hydel power. In view of the significance of Munda Dam Project, WAPDA has decided to initiate it as a priority project, whose feasibility study was conducted by JICA about 10 years ago. The donor agencies as well as financial institutions are ready to finance the project. Munda Dam Project, on its completion, will store 1.29 million acre feet of water to irrigate more than 15,000 acres of land. In addition, the project will also generate 740 MW hydropower, thus, contributing 2,400m units (Gwh) of cheap electricity to the National Grid. Most importantly, Munda Dam Project is very vital to save Nowshera and Charsadda from floods. The project will help store peak floods of Swat River. Hence, accumulation of peak flows of the Swat and Kabul rivers at Nowshera and Charsadda could be avoided. It is pertinent to mention that the Swat and Kabul rivers have been the biggest threat to Nowshera and Charsadda with maximum flows of nearly 400,000 cusecs during the recent floods. The entire destruction in these areas was due to the simultaneous floods in the two rivers, which would be avoided once the Munda Dam made functional. Apart from 969 MW Neelum-Jhelum Hydroelectric Project where work started in 2008 and 4500 MW Diarmer-Basha Dam where work will commence on WAPDA Colony in this September, 740 MW Munda Dam is the biggest multi-purpose hydropower project. Rupee down KARACHI (Reuters) - The rupee ended weaker at 85.65/70 to the dollar, compared with Thursdays close of 85.55/60, amid higher payments for imports. Dealers said the rupee would be range-bound in the short-term but expected pressure in the medium-term. Govt paper KARACHI (Reuters) - The SBP bought back 74.3 billion rupees ($868.2m) of government paper on Friday under 14-day reverse repo contracts at 12.19pc to inject liquidity into a tight money market.