Investment in royalty projects announced for five departments of the country

The national government, through the Ministry of Mines and Energy, announced on Tuesday an investment of 4.9 billion pesos for six royalty-financed projects for the departments of Boyacá, Sucre, Bolívar, Córdoba and Antioquia. The resources will be allocated mainly to initiatives in the sectors of mines, energy, transport, environment, sustainable development, agriculture and rural development.

This decision was taken during the 59th session of the Collegiate Body of Administration and Decision (OCAD), an instrument that evaluates, feasitizes, approves and prioritizes programs and projects that will be financed with resources from the General Royalty System (SGR).

96% of the resources of these works correspond to money from the Production Incentive, which is part of the SGR and which are destined to producing municipalities, where non-renewable energy resources are transported for social investment, economic and environmental promotion.

Against this background, two projects were approved for the department of Sucre in the mining and energy sector. The first is the construction of internal natural gas connections and networks for the Puerto Viejo district in Santiago de Tolú, at a cost of $493 million pesos.

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The second project is the delivery of subsidies for the installation of connections, metering and internal gas network networks for the towns of La Ventura and San Roque, in the municipality of San Benito Abad, for about $820 million pesos. The Government expects that these two projects will benefit more than 22,700 users of the department.

Likewise, with regard to investments in the transport sector, it was announced that two projects were approved in Bolivar and Boyacá.

In the first case, the paving of El Carmen street, in the municipality of San Martín de Loba, Bolívar, will be done. While in Socha, Boyacá, the urban roads of the municipality will be rehabilitated. In this case, the ministry assured that the two interventions will benefit more than 15,000 people and will have an investment of $1.6 billion pesos.

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Regarding the care of the environment, the ministry assured that a project for the ecological rehabilitation of protective forests in the streams of the Corregimientos de San Miguel, Santa Rosa and the Vereda El Recreo, was approved in the municipality of San Carlos, department of Córdoba, with an investment of $288 million pesos, in which would benefit nearly 3,000 people.

Finally, for the agriculture and rural development sector, the body determined support for a project for the production and marketing of fish meat, through intensive exploitation of red tilapia, with Biofloc aquatic organism cultivation technology. About $1.6 billion will be invested in this project, which will contribute to the economic and social reactivation of families engaged in informal mining in the municipality of El Bagre, Antioquia.

In addition to these investments, the Ministry of Mines said that smart light meters will be installed in the beneficiary populations, in order to “improve the quality of service. The change will bring an infrastructure that allows the measurement of electricity consumption, which takes advantage of communications systems and technological advances,” the portfolio explained on its website.

The National Government noted that the devices “measure and record users' electricity usage data, at maximum intervals of one hour, with the ability to store and transmit such data, at least, on a daily basis.”

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