Daily Times

KARACHI: Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) has sent its annual budget document 2018-19 for approval to Sindh Local Government Department (LGD).

According to the budget document available with Daily Times, the civic utility asked for Rs 36.1 billion (bn) this year to run its operations in the metropolis. This amount is Rs 4.80 bn less than the amount KWSB had put forth in last year’s budget.

Officials of KWSB said that the budget has been forwarded to LGD this time. They said that under normal circumstances, a Board comprising of representatives from LGD would have reviewed the budget proposal and approved of it but this time around, the Board had been dissolved in the wake of the general elections.

According to KWSB officials, a new Board will be formed with the approval of the new chief minister after general elections. KWSB officials confirmed that the civic entity had forwarded its budget directly to LGD.

According to the fresh budget document, an amount of over Rs18.45 bn has been allocated to development projects while over Rs11.45 bn have been allocated for non-development expenditures.

In comparison, in the previous fiscal year KWSB had set aside Rs 24.31 bn for development projects and Rs 8.70 bn for non-development expenditures.

Federal and provincial governments funded development projects of the civic entity are included in the budget under additional work of Greater Karachi Water Scheme (K-IV) amounting to approximately Rs4.88 bn and S-III project amounting to Rs 3.62 bn.

In addition to that, KWSB has also requested the federal and Sindh government for supplementary funding of Rs 1.22 bn for different development projects.

This year, Rs4 bn have been allocated to ‘Combined Effluent Treatment Plant’ and approximately Rs5.70 bn have been set aside for Annual Development Programme (ADP). In the last year’s budget, over Rs5.84 bn were allocated to ADP schemes.

Greater Karachi Water Project (K-III) and Textile City project are presently not included in budget document.

The budget document indicates that Rs 6.60 bn has been earmarked on head of electricity charges, Rs 6.26 bn for establishment expenditures and Rs 1.79 bn would be spent on Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants (POL) expenditure for vehicles. Last year, KWSB’s electricity charges totalled to Rs 6.50 bn. Moreover, KWSB earmarked an approximate amount of Rs7.04 bn for repair and maintenance of existing installations for safeguarding its fixed assets worth more than Rs 65 bn.

KWSB Manging Director (MD) Khalid Mahmood Sheikh said that civic entity had submitted PC-I for various schemes amounting to over Rs 5.70 bn to caretaker Sindh government for approval.

KWSB MD expressed the hope that the water utility would achieve 83 percent of its revenue targets amounting to Rs 8.50 bn during annual budget 2018-19 on account of revised strategy for revenue collection and betterment in administrative structure.

According to Khalid Mahmood Sheikh, KWSB reduced funding in its non development sector by almost 15 percent in this year’s budget. He added that allocation of funds for development schemes in new fiscal year would be scrutinized closely. “Furthermore, we will also be keeping an eye on the release of funds to prevent mismanagement,” said Khalid Sheikh.

“Vital development projects would be given preference this time,” stated Khalid Mahmood Sheikh. “We want to complete these projects as soon as we can,” he added.

Khalid Mahmood Sheikh said that the civic entity would be able to pay Rs400 mn owed to retired officials by December 2018.

Published in Daily Times, July 9^th 2018.