Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has agreed to grant the south-central province of Khanh Hoa VND66 billion (US$3 million) in aid to remedy what has been caused by the ongoing drought.

Arriving in Khanh Hoa on Tuesday to review the socio-economic situation in the first quarter of this year, the premier required the provincial authorities to focus on limiting the damage the natural disaster has inflicted on ordinary people.

PM Dung accepted the request of the province for a grant of VND37 billion ($1.7 million) for fighting the drought and VND29 billion ($1.3 million) for farmers to have rice seeds for the following crops.

He also instructed the province to give 1,000 metric tons of rice to ordinary people as food aid during this drought period.

The government leader urged Khanh Hoa to submit proposals on the construction of the reservoirs Ho May and Ta Ruc in Cam Lam District and Song Can in Cam Ranh City, as well as the pumping station Ba Cang in Khanh Vinh District.

Earlier this month, the central government provided the south-central province of Ninh Thuan with VND40 billion ($1.9 million) in financial aid for short-term solutions for relieving the impact of the drought.

Ninh Thuan is planning to build the Tan My reservoir for irrigation with a total volume of 219 million cubic meters of water, which surpasses the total volume of all 21 existing reservoirs of 192 million cubic meters in the province.

Work on the Tan My project started in 2010 but it has been delayed since over the lack of investment.

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