PHUKET: Lifeguards could return to Phuket's holiday coast beaches within the next few days following a verbal agreement reached today in talks with the Phuket Provincial Administrative Organisation, which provides funding.

A separate budget for new equipment is to be negotiated while a contract is drawn up for the Phuket Lifeguard Service to be covered by a 22 million baht budget, a spokesperson for the Phuket Lifeguard Service told Phuketwan.

''The administrative organisation appeared keen to reach a settlement, and so were we,'' said the spokesperson.

''The signing should be completed as soon as the contract is drawn up. We will have to repair the old equipment, which we have been using for the past three years, and keep using that for now.''

Meanwhile, a separate negotiation will take place for a budget for new equipment, which could take weeks to supply from overseas.

Initially, the Phuket administrative organisation had wanted the Phuket Lifeguard Service to absorb the three millionbaht cost of new equipment into the increase in the contracted sum from 20 million baht to 22 million baht.

At the same time, the Phuket Lifeguard Service was hoping to give its most skilled staff a pay rise to accentuate the importance of improving standards. There was also talk of cutting back the number of lifeguards from 108 to 88 to reward the best.

The Phuket Lifeguard Service provides safe swimming zones at 13 Phuket beaches and has become more important with the rising number of non-swimming tourists from countries such as Russia and China.

Although hundreds of swimmers were rescued in 2013, at least 35 drownings were recorded at Phuket beaches or at off-island snorkelling sites. There has yet to be a lifeguard service provide at Racha island, where a succession of Chinese tourists have drowned despite the use of lifejackets.

According to locals, the cost of establishing a lifeguard service on Racha for 30,000 baht a month is being resisted by officials.

While ambassadors from all nations recognise the need for tourists to be protected properly because Phuket is a year-round beach destination, some resort managements and local councils ignore their responsibility to promote safer swimming to all of Phuket's guests from the moment they arrive at Phuket International Airport.

Even with new equipment, Phuket's lifeguards lack state of the art jet-skis with sleds that enable the swiftest of rescues in almost all conditions. Lifeguards on Phuket have to make do with surf skis and paddles, which means that in some cases, help comes too late.

Discussions are needed before the new contract expires to extend the terms of future contracts to three years and to obliterate the danger of beaches being left without lifeguards. In 2012, Phuket went into the dangerous monsoon season that begins each May with no lifeguards on the beaches for six weeks.