15 January 2004	Thursday	22 Ziqa'ad 1424

KARACHI, Jan 14: The city government has initiated measures to improve the deteriorating performance of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board The measures, which also include the termination of the contract of the KWSB's financial advisor, Munawwar Hussain , were effected by the city Nazim Naimatullah Khan here on Wednesday in consultation with KWSB chief Brig Asif Ghazali.

Under the orders, deputy managing director (planning) of the KWSB, Shahid Saleem, has been assigned to take over the finance department in addition to his own duties until further orders. The EDO water and sanitation and the EDO revenue have been asked to ensure implementation of the orders.

Sources told Dawn that the KWSB, with over 8,500 employees, had been suffering constantly losses with shortfalls of millions of rupees every month. They said that in the current month the KWSB was facing a shortage of Rs10 million due to the failure of revenue recovery by the financial department. They said that according to estimates the KWSB revenue recovery was expected to come around Rs8 billion, but it failed to come up to that expectation.

Mr Munawwar Hussain, who was assigned the responsibility on contract basis after his retirement from the KWSB, could not deliver. Due to delay in salaries there was resentment among the staff against hiring of the services of retired officials who, instead of delivering the goods, had become a burden, the sources said and added the KWSB was also facing problems regarding payment of KESC bills and the frequent waterline burst had also been affecting the KWSB's financial health.

The sources further said the situation could have got worse in the coming summer and the need was felt to reshuffle the officials to improve performance. The transfers and postings are as follows:

The services of chief engineer (water distribution) Mr Khalid Malik have been placed at the disposal of the Nazim Secretariat for Tameer-i-Karachi Programme. The superintending engineer (sewerage) has been posted chief engineer (water distribution) with immediate effect in his own pay and scale without prejudice to his right of regular promotion. District officer (local taxes) Mr Najmuddin Sikandar has been relieved of his duties and is posted deputy managing director, relieving Mr Akhlaq Hussain of his additional charge. Mr Rehan Khan, who is working as district officer (recovery), has been given the additional charge of DO (local taxes) in addition to his own duties, in place of Mr Najmuddin Sikandar.

SURVEY: Managing Director of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB), Brig Asif Ghazali, has directed officials of the water board to carrying out a survey of business offices, hotels, dairy farms, cloth-washing and ice factories, nurseries and marriage halls in the city to detect illegal water connections, adds PPI.

Expressing dissatisfaction over recovery of water dues from consumers, Brig Ghazali directed the officials to further gear up the recovery campaign and take urgent steps for regulations of illegal connections to widen the water-tax net.

He issued the directives at a meeting with the tax department's officers at his office on Wednesday. DMD Syed Ikhlaq Hussain and Advisor on Environment Munnawar Hussain were also present.

The meeting unveiled an action plan to improve the recovery of dues, registration of new consumers and installation of new meters for bulk consumers. The targets are to be achieved by June 2004.

The managing director warned that no negligence or slackness would be tolerated in that regard and he would pay surprise visits to consumer complaint centres and other offices to inspect the performance of officials.

He urged the water board officials to follow their office timings and keep in touch with the public for prompt redress of their complaints. He said there was an enormous number of residential and commercial consumers who were getting water and sewerage facilities but were reluctant to pay tax against those services. "Steps are under way to introduce one-window operation to facilitate residential and industrial consumers in getting new connections," he said.