The cabinet on Tuesday approved 1.56 billion baht of spending for water management allocated from the central budget of fiscal 2022.
Government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri said the budget would be used mainly in projects to increase water management efficiency during this year's rainy season and water storage for the dry season of 2022-2023.
The spending will cover a total of 576 projects to be handled by seven agencies under three ministries: the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry, the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry and the Interior Ministry.
According to Mr Anucha, the projects, once completed, will benefit more than 3,542 rai of farmland and 542 households while raising the amount of water in the country's reservoirs by 3.32 million cubic metres.
State authorities have been now alerted to the rise in water levels in dams and have been advised to manage the water outflow to prevent floods in downstream areas, while Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt recently guaranteed that Bangkok would not experience a repeat of the epic floods of 2011 following his inspection of flood-mitigation work in the capital.
According to the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency, provinces located along the Mekong River were badly hit by the 2011 floods, resulting in damage to 370,522 rai of land. The three worst-hit provinces were Nakhon Phanom, Udon Thani and Sakon Nakhon.
In a separate development, Labour Minister Suchart Chomklin said yesterday his ministry is scheduled to forward the increases in the daily minimum wage as approved by the national wage committee to the cabinet for approval on Sept 13 so that the increases could take effect on Oct 1.
The national wage committee finalised on Aug 26 increases in the daily minimum wage by an average of 5.02% and the new rates, which include a hike of 22 baht in Bangkok and its surrounding provinces.
The tripartite panel reviewing the increases to the minimum daily wage agreed to bump them up to between 328 baht and 354 baht. There are nine clusters of provinces with nine different rates.
Under the proposal, the highest rate of 354 baht has been approved for Chon Buri, Rayong and Phuket while the three southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, as well as Nan and Udon Thani, will see the country's lowest rate of 328 baht.
Workers in Bangkok and surrounding provinces will get 353 baht, the biggest hike, up 22 baht from the current rate of 331 baht.