KARACHI: Funds for city’s mega projects demanded: Water, sewerage system
By Azizullah Sharif
KARACHI, July 13: Describing water supply and sewerage as major problems of the metropolis, City Nazim Naimatullah Khan demanded of the president and prime minister to provide financial assistance for mega projects to solve them.
A desalination plant to meet the city’s ever-increasing demand of water, he said, and a power generating unit to ensure an uninterrupted power supply to water installations were immediately required.
The Nazim, who undertook a hectic tour of the city’s major water installations at Dhabeji, Gharo and North-East Karachi (K-2) pump house, was talking to newsmen after inaugurating the K-2 pump house on Sunday. He pressed a button to activate the pump house through which the city has started getting additional water supply of 10 million gallons per day (mgd).
Managing Director of Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, Brig Javaid Ashraf, Deputy MD (Technical Services), Suleman Chandio and chief engineers Mushtaq Memon and Ali Mohammad Palejo accompanied the Nazim during the visit.
The Nazim also inaugurated electric-operated pumping sets at Gharo, thus bringing a halt to pumping of water from two outdated oil engines which were installed in 1943 and 1953 and which had become a major cause of pollution in Dhabeji’s residential area.
Recalling that President Musharraf had pledged three mega projects for the city during the last two years, Mr Khan hoped that the former would ensure more funds to enable the CDGK to undertake the projects relating to water supply and sewerage system.
“Karachi is the barometer for gauging the progress of the country and whatever investment is made in the city’s development projects, it will contribute to the country’s progress,” he remarked.
Indicating that the city government had inherited an obsolete sewerage system, he urged the federal government to allocate adequate funds to replace the outlived sewerage lines to avoid imminent collapse of the entire network.
“Isn’t it a joke that those who had earlier been managing the affairs of the KWSB never bothered to draw sketch maps that could show the exact location and size of water and sewage conduits?” Mr Khan asked, adding that the city government had now embarked upon a plan to undertake the same.
KWSB ACT: Referring to the controversy over the KWSB’s devolution into the city government, the Naimatullah Khan deplored the efforts to keep the Board with the Sindh government and said that it was because of the moves that the repeal of the KWSB Act through the provincial assembly was getting delayed.
He revealed that he had recently written a letter to the provincial government’s committee, assigned the task of sorting out the issue of the KWSB devolution, and informed it that he would not attend the committee’s meeting because as he could not become a party to the conspiracy aimed at stopping the KWSB’s devolution.
K-3 PROJECT: Briefing the Nazim about the pace of ongoing K-3 project, designed to make available an additional water supply to the city by 2005, Brig Javaid Ashraf said that all necessary tenders had already been awarded and that the project would be completed as per its schedule.
Briefing the Nazim about the city’s water supply system, Suleman Chandio said that at present Karachi was being supplied an altogether 475mgd of water — 455 mgd from the Indus source and the rest from the Hub source, leaving a gap of about 100/120mgd between supply and demand.
About bridging the gap, he said that work on the 100mgd K-3 project was in progress while the provincial government had approved a scheme for finding out alternative source.
