Daily Times

Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) in principal has decided to employee a single tier strategy in order to improve Karachi’s water supply system.

KWSB managing director (MD) Khalid Mehmood Sheikh told Daily Times that the board had already taken permission from Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Murad Ali Shah to go ahead with the new three spike single tier project and a written letter had already been submitted to the Sindh government.

Khalid Mehmood said that this single tier system would replace another project which had an estimated cost of Rs 11 billion (bn). Under the previous project, which spanned over 21 kilometers (km), a pipeline was to connect Haleji to Karachi via Pipri. This project, which was initiated some years back included a 16 km long open canal and 5 km conduit system. The project would have supplied 65 million gallons of water per day (MGD) to the metropolis. However, only 3-4 percent work had been finished on the project so far. As per details, the National Logistic Cell was executing the project and the contract had been handed over at ten percent cost of the project. It would have cost KWSB Rs 1.15 bn annually to run this project. The project was, however, discontinued.

According to Khalid Sheikh, the project was wrapped up because it did not include any mechanism for filtration of water and water resource argumentation system. He said that in its place, another project with an estimated cost of Rs 10 bn would be initiated on Private Public Partnership (PPP) basis.

“We will get two benefits after introducing this new system,” explained the board’s MD.”Firstly we will get rid of the financial burden and secondly our water pumping capacity will be enhanced to 155 MGD,” said Sheikh. “Under this scheme, we will get 615 MGD of water for Karachi and that would include 65 MGD from the abandoned Haleji via Pipri water system,” he added.

“Private contractor will responsible for maintenance and monitoring of the new system so KWSB would be able to save around 50 percent of its revenue annually under this PPP,” elaborated Sheikh. “We will also be saving Rs 2.5 bn on power bills,” he added. “Around 365 KWSB current employees would come under financial and administrative umbrella of contractor,” he shared.

Khalid said that in the initial phase of the project, 550 MGD Dhabeji water pumping station would be outsourced on PPP basis. “A consultant will be appointed on this segment later in November 2018,” he said. He explained that afterwards, a desalination plant would be set up under the new project. “The selection of site, cost, and appointment of consultant, power project capacity and other modalities of this project will probably take place within four to five months,” he shared. He said that experts would be invited to launch this new project and study visits of similar projects in Middle Eastern countries would also be conducted to maximise clarity.

It is worth mentioning that earlier three memorandums of understanding (MoUs) had been inked and two sites had been selected for the desalination plant but nothing was finalised. Development of Dhabeji pumping complex, phase-1 first started in 1959, phase-2 in 1971, phase-3 in 1978, phase-4 in 1997, K-2 in 1998, K-3 was initiated in 2006. All accessories, equipment and power system for this project were imported from Germany and England.

It may be instructive to note that Karachi needs 1,250 MGD of water against which it is only being supplied 650 MGD currently.

Published in Daily Times, October 31^st 2018.