MULTAN, Oct 22: The Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) will take over the Multan industrial estate (MIE) sewage disposal station in a bid to run it smoothly.

This was decided at a meeting held in a committee room of DCO office to take stock of the flood-like situation at MIE after disconnection of power supply to the disposal station.

The meeting was presided over by the Punjab director of industries and also attended by the DCO — the chairman of MIE management committee, a seven-member committee of the MIE association and local officials of the industries department.

It may be added here that the Multan Electric Power Company (MEPCO) severed the power connection of the MIE disposal station in the wake of outstanding dues of Rs1.1m a couple of weeks ago.

After negotiations, the MEPCO management offered to restore the power supply on a partial payment of Rs0.47m.

However, neither the management committee nor the association could collect the amount required to get power supply restored. This resulted in stinking affluent of industrial units flooding the MIE roads.

However, the MIE association had reportedly tendered to pay orders for Rs125,000 and Rs25,000 on September 25 and October 5, respectively, as its agreed share to get power supply restored. The rest would be paid by Zila council and colony textile mills.

It was decided that government agencies would deal only with a registered association of the MIE in future.

It was suggested at the meeting that Wasa should evaluate the discharge of each and every unit of the MIE and fix a disposal fee accordingly.

Later, talking to Dawn, MIEA member Khwaja Shoaib lamented the apathy of the association’s bigwigs who had retained the pay orders for nearly a month and let the MIE infrastructure sink.

He urged that the government should lodge a case against those responsible for damaging the government property.