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Wasa tackles fuel theft, saves Rs6m in four months

February 22, 2018

Ali Raza

LAHORE : Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) has managed to save over Rs6 million in the past four months through tech intervention while improving the efficiency of their operations instead of introducing the austerity affecting the performance negatively.

The source of this saving is not a surprising one at all. For years, administration of the agency at various times had expressed their suspicion of irregularities with regards to the fuel consumption being reported by the staff for their routine and troubleshooting operations.

While the numbers did not add up, it was difficult for the administration to accuse or hold anyone responsible for misappropriation of fuel or the undue usage of the vehicle because of no way to prove it. Also every time the matter was brought up, the absence of any system to substantiate the accusation caused the staffers to not only deny it but also allege persecution and even threatened strikes.

The agency operates with a total of 111 vehicles to troubleshoot a total estimated area of 1700 KM. These include 54 dump trucks, 13 tractor-trolleys, 15 backhoes, seven front-end loaders, four excavators, five clamshells, two wheel loaders, two Jetter Machines, five long-boom vehicles, one prime mover, one drag line and one sucker machine

Wasa MD Zahid Aziz had held repeated consultative meetings with senior officials to solve this issue and finally came up with a solution that was simple and yet attacked the problem at its very core. The agency decided to install Vehicle Tracking System in all its 111 vehicles.

The one-time system installation cost of the tracking system was Rs 6.5 million while the service charges were a little over Rs 1 million per month. More than the cost of services has been recovered in just four months, said the MD while talking with The News. “This system is pretty simple. We measured the fuel efficiency of every vehicle separately as the first step, which was then logged.

After that, trackers were installed which measure the distance these vehicles travelled every day. The maximum expected fuel consumption was compared with the demand and any anomaly therein was questioned and action was taken against it. This resolved the entire fuel theft issue within days”, he told.

The mileage of heavy vehicles especially dump trucks has also increased from 2KM to 3KM per litre after installation of the tracking system, he said. “We did not want to jump mindlessly into a long-term commitment without first seeing tangible benefits for this service, which is why we piloted it for four months first”, said Wasa MD Zahid Aziz.

"While we had suspected mass fuel theft and misappropriation, we did not expect that this intervention would end up cutting down fuel consumption by a staggering 57,000 litre in four months, that is like 14,250 litre per month, which is remarkable," he said.

He sated the evident savings were still preserved in the archives as documentary proof and had been appreciated at different forums. Such abundant savings will further swell during the days to come.

Zahid Aziz said, " We decided to sign the contract for a total of three years. Therefore, in view of previous trends, huge savings, in millions, are being projected in the remaining 32 months of the contract as a lot of technical improvements are underway for full-fledged computerisation/digitisation of system." The three-year contract will cost a total of Rs 10.7 million which is like a little over Rs 300,000 per month, so the long-term commitment would prove to be much more economical and effective in this regard, he concluded.

According to Wasa records and receipts log of the time this intervention was not employed, the total fuel consumed by Wasa vehicles was 95,000 litre and now the monthly fuel consumption limit of towns has drastically decreased over the past four months.