KARACHI, May 26: The senior official of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, Suleman Chandio, on Monday took over as the new managing director of the utility replacing Ghulam Arif who reported to the Sindh local government department for his next posting.

Though Mr Chandio had assumed the charge of his new assignment after the issuance of a notification by the Sindh government on May 20, he continued to perform his duties as the KWSB chief by sitting in his old office of the deputy managing director till Monday as the outgoing MD was reluctant to hand over him the charge on the plea that the notification whereby Mr Chandio was appointed as the chief of the utility had been held in abeyance.

Shortly after formally taking over the charge as the KWSB chief, Mr Chandio circulated draft copies of the city’s water and sewerage master plan among the heads of various departments for their comments and recommendations so as to make the draft a document of consensus.

The city’s water and sewerage master plan has been formulated by a study team of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and it will be incorporated into the Karachi Strategic Master Plan-2020 prepared by the city government.

Meanwhile, presiding over a meeting of KWSB revenue department officials, Mr Chandio, directed the chief revenue officer, directors and deputy directors to improve the utility’s revenue position by launching a vigorous drive aimed at recovering water charges.

Later, talking to Dawn, he said that he had also asked the officials to reduce non-development expenditures.