By By Qadeer Tanoli
Despite the fact that the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) has the facility of availing Para 58 of Central Public Works Department (CPWD) rules to spend funds on an urgent basis, the water utility is hampered by a severe lack of adequate machinery to deal with emergency situations. The KWSB is thus forced to tackle such situations by farming out various jobs to contractors, The News has learnt.
Sources told The News that due to a lack of machinery, an adverse situation can, in fact, inflict losses of million of rupees to the water utility. Sources said that the KWSB is devoid of any excavator, dewatering pumps, mobile welding plant or mobile generator. All that the KWSB possesses is two cranes, a source said. In the absence of critical machinery, sources said, contractors charge Rs10,000 per hour for use of an excavator.
Para 58, the rule of Central Public Works Department (CPWD), grants unlimited funding to the managing director (MD) of government organisations so as to ensure that emergency situations can be effectively dealt with.
The Sindh Government has empowered the top officials of the water utility with unlimited funding through KWSB Act 1996, which was passed through the Sindh Assembly in April 1996 and which had repealed the Sindh Local Government Amendment Ordnance-1983.
In the KWSB’s case, the MD has been fully authorised the job of handling emergency situations faced by the water utility, irrespective of cost. It is pertinent to mention here that on a number of occasions, water supply lines have burst during the recent past, and all those emergencies were handled through exercising Para 58.
Experts privy to KWSB’s operations and issues believe that the entity has a tendency of turning to emergency services on a regular basis. The KWSB is responsible to ensure that the supply of water is regular, and to guarantee that sewerage lines remain functioning and are not blocked. Due to nature of the utility’s services, emergency-like situations may occur any time, experts assert.
Experts argue that this rule existed since the time of the British, which was endorsed through Pakistan Public Procurement Rules 2006. According to them, the utility can be faced with a host of problems at any given time: water supply lines may burst, sewerage lines can face closures, while water pumps can also develop problems in their functioning. All these situations can cause public annoyance, and Para 58 is permitted to handle these kinds of situations, experts said.
Sources in the KWSB meanwhile told The News that the employment of Para-58 can be good and bad at the same time. They said that while this rule obviously assists the high-ranking officials of the KWSB to handle emergency situation with ease, “vested interests” may lead to the wrong use of Para 58.
Anticipating that a problem will emerge and lead to an emergency situation is also the responsibility of the authority concerned, sources said. For instance, they said, a water supply line that is about 20-25 years old will develop problems, but such lines don’t burst immediately. There is generally some indication that the lines need maintenance, and there is amply time for the authorities concerned to complete official formalities regarding their upkeep.
They said that the authority concerned should announce tenders in such situations, and all formalities to start the repairing process can be tackled in around 23 days. Contrary to this, they said, the authorities concerned sometimes wait till the emergency emerges, and then turn to Para 58 to dispose of the situation.
Similarly, they said, a pump does not stop working immediately, but starts clattering. A qualified worker can easily predict that the pump may develop problems during next the 15 to 20 days. They said that in situation such as these, there is no need to exercise Para-58, as it can be handled easily prior to emerging of the emergency.
Sources said that due to a lack of machinery to handle emergency situations, contracts awarded to repair burst water supply lines may cross Rs2 million. Officials of KWSB who have field-oriented jobs, such as executive engineers and superintending engineers, also get their vehicles repaired through the exercise of Para 58, sources alleged.
The cost of handling emergencies may be brought to a minimum if the KWSB opts to get its own machinery, sources said. According to them, even though an excavator costs a few million rupees, other machinery can be purchased easily since it is not as expensive. Excavators available at Sohrab are generally used to handle the emergency situations by KWSB, and such equipment can easily be procured by the KWSB, sources said.
Sources further added that the dewatering pump of a four-inch-diameter is available in the market at around Rs1.2 million, whereas the cost of a 10-inch-diameter dewatering pump is around Rs6 million. Similarly, they said, a mobile welding plant can be purchased for about Rs800,000 to Rs1 million, while a mobile generator of 25 kilowatts capacity may cost the KWSB around Rs500,000.