Daily Times

Water Commission (WC) has sought an explanation from Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) regarding a complaint lodged against the water utility by an engineering company, according to officials of KWSB.

The engineering company, called Descon Engineering Limited, was disqualified from the tender process pertaining to the installation of 350 water meters in the K-III project. Descon Engineering Limited in its complaint to WC submitted that the firm had fulfilled KWSB’s terms and conditions for the domestic tender process.

Following the notice by WC, the Tender Committee of KWSB is expected to submit its response within a week of the issued notice.

According to officials, Rs 900 mn have been allocated for the installation of meters on inlet and outlet source of bulk supply lines in KIII project. Earlier, the WC directed the relevant authorities in the utility to install water meters at KWSB’s bulk pumping stations and rehabilitate existing insertion type electromagnetic water flow meters at bulk installation and pumping stations.

Advisor to Prime Minister (PM) Abdul Razzak Dawood who is currently running Descon told WC that his company had been working on an international level and possessed all the required qualifications for the job but it was still disqualified from the domestic tender process. Reportedly, the engineering firm also submitted a complaint against NPI, the company KWSB selected for the task of installing meters. However, Nauman Khalid an official employed by NPI said that his company had qualified on merit, fulfilled financial, technical and other required terms of the tender. “If we are rejected by WC, we will go to court of law to seek justice as we have already provided technical and commissioning services to KWSB and also to other government departments of Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab,” he said.

Meanwhile, WC directed Meter Division and Revenue department of KWSB to appear before it on December 24 through a notice in which WC expressed its displeasure over the fact that 126 water meters over the fact that 126 meters installed at different sites of water installation were non-functional.

It is worth mentioning that there are 9,449 bulk consumers of water but only 2,627 such consumers are paying water charges to KWSB and the total charges collected stand at around 5 per cent of the total revenue supposed to be collected by water entity.

WC also terminated Shakeel Qureshi, superintending engineer Meter Division on missing four water meters from COD Store amounting millions of rupees loss to water entity. These missing water meters could not be found despite a report lodged at Aziz Bhatti Police Station, officials of KWSB informed.

Under a water meter project, around 166 meters were imported from England at a cost of Rs 660 million during the tenure of Mustafa Kamal for 52 water pumping stations, 18 towns’ stations and for installation at different sites of water entity. This project has already been delayed for more than one year and resultantly there was no any data of water being supplied through inlet and outlet water supply source, officials of KWSB asserted.

Published in Daily Times, December 18^th 2018.