Qaim to inaugurate K-IV scheme in two weeks: Sharjeel

Karachi
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah is likely to perform the ground-breaking ceremony of the long-awaited K-IV Greater Karachi Bulk Water Supply Scheme of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) on June 10.
This was revealed by the Sindh information and local government minister Sharjeel Inam Memon on Tuesday while presiding over a meeting of officials from his department and municipal bodies of the city.
Memon said the K-IV water supply scheme, under its first phase, would take 260 million gallons of water per day from the Keenjhar Lake and supply to Karachi via a 124-kilometre long pipeline network.
Out of these 124 kilometres, some 70 kilometres of the pipeline pass through 8,244 acres of land in the Malir district. He said more than 2,034 acres is private property while the rest, around 6,218 acres, is government land.
Moreover, said the local government minister, the Sindh government had also launched a free water tanker service to cope up with the prevailing water crisis in the city. He claimed that some 600 tankers were supplying water to the residents of district West, 300 to district South, 150 to district Central while around 50 tankers were being dispatched every day to other districts of the city.

Ghost employees
On the occasion, the local government minister also directed the chiefs of all municipal and civic agencies to order the staff to reopen their accounts in the Sindh Bank by June 15 to be able keep receiving their salaries regularly.
He said if the employees did not open their salary accounts by June 15, they would not be paid by the government.
The relevant provincial authorities have been insisting on re-opening of salary accounts by municipal staffers in Karachi so to detect ghost and absentee employees among their ranks who continue to draw salaries from the government exchequer.
In his briefing to the meeting, the administrator of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation out of around 27,000 employees, some 18,478 staffers had re-opened their salary accounts at the Sindh Bank while rest would follow suit by June 15. The managing director of Karachi Water and Sewerage Board informed the meeting that some 8,700 employees out of total 12,944 staffers had re-opened their salary accounts at the Sindh Bank as directed by the authorities concerned.
Similarly, out of 2,700 employees of District Municipal Corporation West, around 2,200 have opened their new salary accounts. In district Central out of the 6,100 employees around 5,500 employees have done so, while out of some 3,772 employees of district Korangi about 2,612 have reopened their salary accounts.
In district Malir, out of the total 3,314 employees around 2,612 have reopened new salary accounts. In the DMC South there are 5,187 municipal employees out of which 4,195 have opened their new accounts at the Sindh Bank as per the directives of the government.
The local government minister also stressed the installation of biometric attendance system by June 30 at all municipal, civic installations and offices, including that of the KWSB and KMC, to ensure regular attendance of municipal staffers at work.
Memon also directed the municipal authorities to give a 15-day ultimatum to all commercial ventures and companies involved in covering city’s walls with graffiti for marketing for its removal. He directed the departments concerned to remove all sorts of unauthorised advertisement and commercial messages, otherwise issue notices to the violators. In the next phase, the minister suggested, registering FIRs against the violators.
He said all the administrators posted to district municipal councils should also speed up tax recovery from traders and increase it by 100 percent. The local government minister also warned of action against unauthorised units manufacturing and supplying bottled drinking water.