KARACHI, Oct 28: A survey for the evaluation of the available water and sanitation services in nine out of the 18 towns of the city will soon be carried out for which the World Bank’s water and sanitation programme will be extending financial assistance.

This was announced at a media briefing organised by Panos, a UK-based NGO. According to details, the study will be conducted by a local organisation, Nielson, and the technical assistance will be provided by an Indian firm, Public Affairs Centre (PAC), a pioneer in such surveys called the Citizens’ Report Card (CRC). The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) will also be assisting in the project.

A sample of 500 service users will be scientifically drawn from each of the nine towns, which include Malir, Bin Qasim, Gulshan, Orangi, Keamari, Saddar, Gulberg, Nazimabad and Site. The survey is likely to start by mid November and the final report will be made public in Feb 2008.

The Bangalore-based PAC chief, Dr Gopakumar Thampi, giving a brief regarding the survey said that it was a simple but powerful tool to provide public agencies with a systematic feedback from the users of public services enabling these organisations to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

He said that the CRCs acted as diagnostic tools and could reveal areas where the organisation had not fulfilled its obligations and the findings could be translated into rights-based advocacy statements.

Dr Thampi was of the view that the CRCs if conducted periodically could also reveal the hidden costs in the forms of bribes and kickbacks etc, which the service users had to pay to avail themselves of these services.

The PAC chief said that in some of the cities where the CRCs were conducted on a regular basis, people had become more aware about the quality of such services. Sharing his Bangalore experience where survey was conducted for six agencies — power, water, telecom, government hospitals, urban authorities, transport — the visiting Indian expert said that initially the utility agencies did not pay any heed to these surveys but gradually they started take note of the CRC’s findings.

Besides many Indian cities, the CRC exercise has been carried out in many countries including Ukraine, Philippines, Zanjibar, Ethiopia, Tajikistan, Kenya and Sri Lanka etc.

He said these surveys basically increased the competition among various utilities. Since there was only one agency in the case of Karachi, the competition could be held among the various towns, he added.

Sahar Ali of Panos and

Farhan Anwer of the WB’s water and sanitation programme also spoke.