‘148 MGD pilfered or lost in leakages from KWSB water supply system’

Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani has conceded that 148 million gallons daily (MGD) – up to 30 per cent of the water being supplied to Karachi – is either pilfered or lost due to leakages in the supply system.

The admission from Ghani came during a conversation with journalists on Wednesday as he along with officials of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board inspected repair work being carried out by the water board in Clifton’s Block 7.

According to the minister, the city has been facing a 50 per cent water supply shortage and the provincial government has initiated a number of projects to overcome this. Ghani said KWSB officials have been directed to work on an emergency basis to plug the leakages in the supply system and to prevent the menace of water theft from the bulk supply lines.

To ensure supply to different localities on a just basis, the minister said he has ordered water utility’s officials to impose the “Closure system” so that water is supplied to residential areas that have remained dry (without water supply) for a prolonged period, lasting up to a month.

He explained that his directives regarding the imposition of the closure system didn’t mean to stop water supply to the areas already receiving pipelined water on a regular basis but it was meant to ensure justified distribution of whatever quantity of bulk water was being supplied to the city.

The local government minister added that the entire country had been facing a severe water shortage so it would be utterly unwise to completely rely on the single source of Indus River to meet Karachi’s needs. The option of desalination of seawater had to be fully explored to effectively overcome shortage, he said, adding

The Sindh government had already started working on the feasibility to install a desalination plant somewhere on the Karachi coast.

Ghani further said that he come to Clifton Block 7 to personally supervise the repair and maintenance work on pipelines to ensure potable water is provided to residents through the pipelined network of the KWSB.

He said that issue of sewage being mixed with potable water being supplied to Clifton Block 7 would be resolved in the coming 24 hours as the area’s broken water pipeline would be repaired during this time.

Chopper rides

Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani has said that he will talk to his political fellows belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to avail helicopter service to tour all areas of Sindh, and he is willing to pay a higher rate of “Rs 550 per kilometre if the rate of Rs55 [per kilometer] is not offered to him”.

“I will be required to visit all areas of Sindh to inspect their municipal affairs, so going by road would be a time-consuming and expensive proposition. So I would talk to my friends in PTI to get the helicopter service as I’m ready to avail the chopper service at the higher rate of Rs 550 [per kilometer] if it is not available at the rate of Rs55 [per kilometer] as this will make my work easier,” he said while talking to newsmen on Wednesday during his visit to Clifton’s Block-7.

The minister stated this in a lighter vein in the context of a statement made by Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Fawad Chaudhry the other day, who had defended the use of a helicopter by Prime Minister Imran Khan for his travels between the Prime Minister House in Islamabad and his private residence in Bani Gala.

Khan had claimed that using the helicopter for such a ride by the prime minister was an economical proposition as he had checked on Google and learnt that the chopper ride cost around Rs55 per kilometre.

To a question, Ghani said that complaints of PTI MNA Aamir Liaquat Hussain were justified to a large extent as the new prime minister should not ignore Karachi. He said that whosoever was elected as prime minister or president of the country was under an obligation to visit the mausoleum of the founder of the nation, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in Karachi. “But it seems that some problems have been preventing Imran Khan from visiting Karachi since he became the prime minister,” he said.

Answering another question, he said Karachi had been facing a number of civic issues, including sanitation, encroachments and unattended municipal waste, and those issues had to be resolved one by one after prioritising them in a proper manner. He said that all the longstanding civic issues of the city could not be resolved in one go.