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KARACHI, July 1: KWSB chief Brig Iftikhar Haider on Thursday protested over KESC's move to disconnect power supply even to the head office of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, the Ninth-Mile Karsaz offices and the two staff colonies.
Terming it an "unfair" and "uncalled for" move, he said that the KWSB had already paid a hefty amount of over Rs 1.4 billion to the KESC on account of electricity charges between July 2003 and June 2004. This amount also includes Rs 400m paid by the Sindh government.
He said since the KWSB was the bulk purchaser of electricity, KESC's survival depends on the KWSB because a major chunk of KWSB's revenue is paid to the power utility, he remarked, saying if the KWSB starts generating power at its own or if water installations are run through other sources, KESC would collapse financially."
"Isn't it illogical that the KWSB is being compelled to pay electricity bills on commercial / industrial rates which comes to Rs 6.35 paisa per unit whereas Wapda is charging power rates from all water utilities of the country, including those of Islamabad and Azad Kashmir on agricultural basis i.e. Rs 3.62 per unit," he told newsmen.
In this regard, Brig Haider said he on the directives of the city Nazim, Niamatullah Khan, who is also chairman of the KWSB, had written two letters to the Sindh's chief secretary and the KESC chairman, seeking a new electricity tariff for the water utility and that too on the basis of agricultural rates.
Replying to a question, he said that the matter had also been taken up with the federal government as well as with Nepra. He requested the federal and provincial governments to come to the rescue of the KWSB as even after paying a huge amount of over Rs 1.40 billion to the KESC on account of electricity charges, an amount of Rs 370m was still outstanding against it and the KWSB was not in a position to pay the same because a major portion of the revenue collected under the head of water charges goes to the KESC every year.
Deploring the KESC's action of disconnecting electricity of the KWSB head office, 9th-Mile Karsaz offices and two officials' colonies, Brig Haider said that one should realise the difficulties in which the KWSB officials are discharging their duties in the absence of electricity in the current hot and sultry weather.
K-3 PROJECT: Referring to the on-going K-3 project whereby the city would get an additional 100 million gallons of water from the Indus source, he said that work on it was progressing expeditiously and it would be completed either by December 2005 or by March 2006.
In this regard, he said that the federal government had already provided Rs 1 billion for the project while a couple of days back president Gen. Pervez Musharraf had released two more cheques of Rs 800m and 200m which the KWSB be getting soon.
He said that since there would remain a gap of 100 mgd between the city's water supply and its demand even after the commissioning of the K-3 project, the KWSB has started preparing feasibility reports for another 100 mgd water project to be known as K-4.
He said that the gap between water supply and demand is continuously increasing, mainly owing to influx of people in the city from various parts of the country. Regarding the KWSB's tax collection campaign, he said that the revenue department of the KWSB had collected Rs 2.13 billion till June 30, 2004, which was much higher as against the amount collected during the 2003-04 fiscal year.
HYDRANTS: When his attention was drawn towards the devastation caused by tankers drawing water from the KWSB's hydrants being manned by Rangers, he said that soon a number of all such hydrants will either be reduced or they will be shifted to some other places.
Others present on the occasion included deputy managing directors, Shahid Salim, Syed Akhlaq Hussain, Arshad Javaid, Israr Zaidi, Pir Zaman Shah, chief engineers Asudomal, Fareed Soomro, Mushtaq Memon, Gulzar Memon and Ali Mohammad Palejo.
