KARACHI: The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) has stopped work on installation of 310 water meters at 155 pumping stations across the city on the directives of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the civic entity informed the Water Commission at the last hearing. Meanwhile, the civic entity has requested Justice (retd) Ameer Hani Mulsim, who heads the commission, to take up the matter with the ECP. Khalid Mehmood Sheikh, the managing director of the KWSB, told the commission that a summary submitted for the project to the local governments secretary, Ramzan Awan, was returned with the objection that no new projects could be started because of the proximity of the general elections. The restriction has been legislated to ensure that the party in power cannot use development funds to influence the outcome of elections. Quoting the local governments secretary, the KWSB managing director said that the summary could be approved only if the chief election commissioner gave a go ahead in the matter. The issue of installation of digital water meters in the city had emerged during hearings by the commission on the chronic shortage of water and theft from KWSB pipelines. The commission asked the civic body to install meters to control theft after the managing director mentioned that with digital meters the entity could be better able to tackle the issue. Earlier, Shakil Qureshi, the superintending engineer at the Metered Consumer Cell, had written to DMD TS, chief engineers, superintending engineers, executive engineer and other water officials on February 27, urging them to follow Water Commission’s directives with regards to installation of meters at all pumping stations in the city. On February 19, the KWSB managing director asked all officials concerned to provide lay out plans of pumping stations, showing inlet and outlet pipes with location of discharge names of focal persons with whom meter division would liaise to formulate a plan and any other information relating to installation of water meters. Owais Malik, the superintending engineer at the West zone, said that under his domain, 31 water pumping stations were working, out of which eight were selected for installationn of digital meters. Digital water meters are meant for conduits and large diameter pipelines ranging from over inches 72, 66, 54, 48, 36, 33, 24, 18 and 12 inches. A survey of pumping stations including those in SITE, Orangi Town, Baldia Town, North Nazimabd Town, North Karachi Town, Gulberg Town, Shah Faisal Town, Korangi Town, Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town, Gadap Town, Malir Town, Landhi Town, Jamsheed Town, Saddar Town, Lyari Town, Liaquatabad Town, Kemari Town and pumping station inter-connection chambers at Dumlottee pumping station has already been completed. Published in Daily Times, April 25th 2018.