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| September 15, 2005 | Thursday | Sha'aban 10, 1426 |
Rs340m Indus telemetry system out of order
ISLAMABAD, Sept 14: The telemetry system installed at a cost of Rs340 million for unquestionable water data has been out of order for about eight months and no institution is ready to own it in its present state. “Currently, the system is neither being operated or maintained nor monitored by any institution. It has no owner at all,” a senior official of the water and power ministry told Dawn. He said the Prime Minister Secretariat had already been informed about the situation.
He said a committee was constituted with Secretary Water and Power Ashfaq Mehmood as its head to monitor certain problem-points of the telemetry system. This committee had also failed to improve working of the system.
The system was installed on the instructions of President General Pervez Musharraf about two years ago to build confidence among the four provinces for construction of new dams and to deal with allegations of certain provinces regarding water theft.
The sources said the Prime Minister’s Inspection Commission (PMIC) led by Maj Gen Farooq Ahmad visited a number of locations of the telemetry system last month and had directed the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) to hand over the system to Wapda for a period of three weeks.
Irsa was also asked to coordinate among irrigation departments of the four provinces to ensure that they provided accurate water data to Wapda during this period.
The PMIC had also directed Wapda to take over the telemetry system from Irsa, repair and rehabilitate it. It was asked to operate and maintain the system for three weeks and then return it to Irsa once it was satisfied with functioning of this system.
Consequently its project director Javed Bhatti was transferred from Wapda to Irsa to look after operations and maintenance of the system during this three-week time.
Mr Bhatti asked Irsa to provide him a supporting staff of about six members for operation and maintenance of the system. Irsa, however, refused to place six officials at his disposal on the ground that monitoring of the system still remained with Irsa. At this, Mr Bhatti refused to take over the system from Irsa.
The sources said senior officials of Water and Power Ministry had tried to sort out the issue but both parties remained stuck to their positions.
Subsequently the ministry referred the issue to the Prime Minister Secretariat with a full update on the subject. The system, however, is not being operated, maintained or monitored by either of the two institutions, the sources added.
The system has been facing problems since early this year. Its contractor and executing agency Wapda have been accusing Irsa of poor maintenance and resultant problems. On the other hand, Irsa has been blaming Wapda and the contractor for installing a ‘problematic system’.
Independent consultants appointed by Irsa had also found faults in the system and said environmental aspects and power requirements of the system had not been properly taken care of at the time of its designing.
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