regretted that while Karachi was facing a shortage of around 450 million gallons daily (MGD), the government was delaying the launching of the K-IV greater Karachi water supply scheme for the last several years because of which the cost of the project had constantly been increasing.
Hassan said the pumping stations of the KWSB were decades’ old and millions of gallons of water was pilfered from the distribution system either through illegal connections or unauthorised water hydrants.
In one instance, he added, 100 MGD water was pumped through the system of the KWSB but only 50 MGD water had ultimately reached the consumers because of the illegal connections in main lines of the water utility.
Hassan suggested that meters should be installed at pumping stations to find out the locations from where water was being stolen and introduce measures on an emergency basis to plug the leakages in the system.
He said the absent employees of the KWSB should attend their duties regardless of their political affiliations.
Muhammad Hussain Khan, the MQM MPA who had moved the adjournment motion, said the government should immediately stop its step-motherly-like treatment towards Karachi.
“For fulfilling the water needs of Karachi, four or five new water supply schemes, having a 600 MGD additional water supply capacity, should be initiated and executed at the same time,” he suggested.
He said the new water supply schemes for Karachi should be launched in the same way the federal government had launched several power generation schemes with a 10,000 MW generation capacity keeping in view the power shortfall in the upcountry.
He noted that the Sindh government had spent Rs5 billion on the construction of the new building of the provincial assembly while an additional matching amount would be spent on new luxury hostels for MPAs.
“This massive spending only for the accommodation of lawmakers is completely unnecessary at a time when the government is not even able to deliver the basic needs of life including water to the residents of the provincial capital.”
Khan pointed out that the upcountry areas had witnessed tremendous growth in terms of development projects – the metro bus service for example – but Karachi, despite making a massive contribution towards the government’s income generation, could not even fulfill the basic needs of its residents.
Mehtab Akbar Rashdi, a Pakistan Muslim League-Functional MPA, said the persistent water crisis in Karachi had exposed the provincial government and subsidiary civic agencies including the Karachi Municipal Corporation and KWSB’s incompetency.
She added that gravity of the water crisis in Karachi could be gauged from the fact that there were no water supply pipelines in the newly developed phases of the posh area Defence and their residents had to completely rely on water tanker services.
Syed Hafeezuddin of the PTI pointed out that the additional water supply for Karachi that would be arranged through the K-IV bulk water supply scheme would be from the polluted Keenjhar Lake where the effluent produced by the industries in Kotri was dumped.
He said the Dhabeji pumping station had been functioning with old machinery and equipment which was installed in 1958. Some machinery was installed there in 1998. He said a law should be passed for punishing the people involved in water theft.
Irum Azeem Farooque of the MQM said she had pointed out sometime back that there could be water riots in the coming days instead of ones based on ethnicity or land and her prediction seemed to be coming true.
Shaharyar Khan Mahar of the PML-F said many new grand housing schemes were emerging on the city’s outskirts and the government should inform the public as to how the water needs of their residents would be met.
Local govt bill
The provincial assembly unanimously passed into law the Sindh Local Government Second Amendment Bill, 2015.
Parliamentary affairs minister Dr Sikandar Mandhro said the amendment bill was primarily aimed at giving protection to town committees, municipal committees and municipal corporations in the local government system, the notification for which was issued in 2010.
The minister added that as the population of the province had increased since 2010, it would be unwise to change back the status of town committees, municipal committees and municipal corporations already formed a few years ago.