ISLAMABAD, Aug 3: The government on Wednesday warned the contractor of the Rs320 million telemetry system to remove faults within three weeks or face legal action for providing a defective mechanism. Water and Power Minister Liaquat Ali Khan Jatoi issued this warning to M/s Siemens at an inter-provincial meeting on the telemetry system.
Informed sources said that there was consensus among the provinces, members of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) and the ministry officials that M/s Siemens had failed to provide a fault-free system. The telemetry system was installed to remove misunderstandings among the provinces over water discharges.
An official statement issued after the meeting said: “The minister expressed his dissatisfaction over the problems in the telemetry system and directed the concerned company to remove all the faults and make the telemetry system operational within three weeks time, otherwise an inquiry will be held in this regard to fix the responsibility.”
The system was installed to monitor inflows, outflows and distribution of water to provinces. The objective was to develop confidence among the provinces. The minister said Irsa and the provinces had voiced concern that the system had not been working properly and needed improvement to get desired results. He said the concerned company should remove all the faults within three weeks and there should be no complaints in future.
A Siemens spokesman challenged these complaints, saying current problems were associated with maintenance. He pointed out that a model site at Kotri had been selected to demonstrate the importance of maintenance and claimed that the model was working perfectly.
A government official said that Siemens representatives had explained about the working of the model site at the meeting. However, he added, the Irsa member from Sindh and the provincial irrigation secretary pointed out that even the Kotri site had started showing variations soon after the contractor gave a clean sheet.
The meeting was informed that four model sites in each province — Garang, Kotri, Taunsa and Naushehra – had been selected by the contractor for monitoring but that continued to register faults even after the maintenance. The official said that Siemens representatives had accused Wapda of fluctuation in power supply and added that had been causing faults.
The Irsa chairman told Siemens that under clause 2.2 of the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract, the system should not get affected by any problem relating to variation in atmosphere and electrical or mechanical circumstances.
The chairman then gave a presentation on the system, its problems and recommendations for improvement. He said sufficient water was available to meet provinces’ demands.
It was informed that a cushion of 10 feet and six feet was available in Tarbela and Mangla, respectively, for unforeseen rains. The country has 10.942 million acre feet (MAF) water in its various reservoirs against the 3.9MAF at the same time last year.
The meeting was informed that Irsa would carry forward 10MAF water for the next Rabi season to meet the demand. It was also informed that 10MAF water had been released for the Kotri downstream from April to July 31.
