Daily Times

KARACHI: Chief Secretary Sindh, Rizwan Memon has directed Karachi Water and Sewerage Board to issue show cause notice to Pak Oasis and Company, the contractor of Treatment Plant (TP)-I Haroonabad SITE and TP-II, Mahmoodabad on failure in running the plants besides providing adequate machinery at the respective sites.

In case of failure on taking action against the Company by KWSB within a week, CS has warned civic entity that he would send this case to Anti Corruption Establishment.

CS also showed his anger over the delay in development work on both plants, adding that Rs 5.5 billion has so far been spent on different heads of S-III project in the last four years.

He expressed his astonishment on how S-III Project Directorate could start work on fresh TP-III and TP-IV projects which were in pipeline. “More than Rs 36 billion S-III revised PC-I is still before the Planning Division Islamabad for approval and later Central Development Working Party after pondering into pros and cons of the project’s viability would put forward this paper for final approval before Executive Committee of National Economic Council”, CS mentioned.

The Company had been awarded the contract of these sites in around 2013 and they had to furnish job on the sites within one year period after contract and had to complete the import of machinery for these plants as well.

The Company had also been provided Rs 600 million as advance money under contract accord.

Imtiaz Magsi, Project Director S-III project has informed the CS that under the direction of Supreme Court of Pakistan with clear instructions that running of these plants had been the responsibility of KWSB but the civic entity has failed to discharge its official obligation.

On behalf of S-III departmental official responsibility, the Department has been running its official matters in a smooth manner and imported machinery from a USA based company in United Kingdom for both plants would probably reach Karachi Port in September-October 2017, he added.

Magsi informed SC that running and other TP related matters have been rested on KWSB while S-III responsibility stands for providing new machinery, replacement of old ones and building of new TPs.

KWSB has been unable in discharging its official responsibilities toward running and maintaining these treatment plants since the last ten years, he maintained.

There are three sewerage treatment plants installed, one each at SITE (age 10-year), also known as TP-I, Mehmoodabad (age 10-year), known as TP-II and at Mauripur (age 17-year), known as TP-III, but not a single plant has been working properly.

Consequently, completely untreated sewerage is being discharged into the Arabian Sea, bordering one end of Karachi. Despite idle situation of these TPs, 141 personnel of KWSB who have nothing to do are still on job.

It is also reported with regard to TP-II that a large part of the land earmarked for treatment/lagoon/storage of sewerage has been leased out by Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and another large portion of land has also been encroached upon by land grabbers.

KWSB Act, 1996 established a Board for supply of water and disposal of sewerage in Karachi division and also to ensure filtered water supply fit for human consumption.

Under sub-section (2) of section 5 of the Act Board it is also required to construct, maintain and operate, sewerage works for collecting, pumping, treating and disposing sewerage and industrial waste (clause (b) of sub-section (vii) of section 3 of Act.

But KWSB has failed to fulfill its primary statutory mandate, un-filtered, un-treated and un-tested water is being supplied and the entire sewerage of Karachi is being dumped untreated into Arabian Sea.

KWSB has around 13,000 employees, but has not been able to fulfill its basic statutory duties.

Published in Daily Times, July 7^th , 2017.