KARACHI: Many water supply and drainage schemes across the province, which had been started years ago, have not yet been completed because of financial constraints, says Sindh minister for information and local bodies Sharjeel Inam Memon, who also holds the portfolio of public health engineering.

He was responding during the question hour at the Sindh Assembly session on Friday, which began about an hour later than the scheduled time of 10am and was presided over by speaker Agha Siraj Durrani.

At the outset of the question hour, Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sikander Mandhro explained to the members that the order of the day erroneously carried the name of Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah as looking after the public health engineering ministry (PHE) while the portfolio was now held by Mr Memon.

Speaker Durrani asked why such a notification had not been sent to the assembly secretariat. Dr Mandhro said it had been sent to the assembly but the speaker insisted it had not reached the assembly although he allowed Mr Memon to respond to members’ queries.

Mr Memon then asked the PHE parliamentary secretary to respond to questions to which the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional legislator, Nusrat Sehar Abbasi, objected and said that under the rules the secretary could only answer in the absence of the minister but since Mr Memon was present he should respond himself.

Mr Memon did not know about the rule and just looked blankly at the speaker, who agreed with Ms Abbasi and advised Mr Memon to reply himself and read the rules as well.

In response to a question by Ms Abbasi about the poor state of water supply and drainage system in Khairpur district, where billions of rupees had been spent because it was chief minister’s home district, Mr Memon agreed with her and said that many schemes, including those in Khairpur, were incomplete or non-functional and Rs1 billion had been allocated to make them operational.

The work on them would start soon after completion of legal formalities. He also agreed with her the performance of the North Sindh Urban Services Corporation (NCUSC), which managed many of these schemes, had not improved over the years since the corporation had been handed over the municipal services.

He said the chief minister had dismissed the NCUSC board and now new members were being nominated. He hoped the situation would improve after that.

In reply to another question, he said the improvement of urban drainage scheme of Dadu city which would cost Rs590 million had been approved in 2008-09 and was to be completed in 2011 but it had not been completed yet because of insufficient and slow release of funds.

Even the little amount that had been released could not be spent, out of Rs590 million only Rs178 million had been issued and of it only Rs166 million could be spent, he said.

To a couple of questions by Muttahida Qaumi Movement legislators Mohammad Hussain and his party colleagues about why the scheme approved in 2008 was not completed in 2008–09 the minister said that at that time the PHE minister was MQM’s Adil Siddiqui, so they should approach him to get the answer.

To another question by Ms Abbasi about improvement of urban water supply scheme in Berani (Sanghar district) which was yet to be completed, the minister said that Rs160 million scheme had been approved in 2008 and was to be completed in 2011 but was left halfway as only Rs119 million were released.

Answering a question by PML-F legislator Rafique Banbhan about water filtration plants which had been completed but not made functional, Mr Memon said the plants did not have electricity connections and efforts were being made to get the connections to start the plants. At some places the plants had been installed very far from electricity poles hence delays in bringing power to them, he added.

The speaker suggested that solar power supply might be used in such cases, to which Mr Memon said the new plants now being installed were solar-powered.

MQM’s Heer Soho and a few other MPAs also participated in the question and answer session.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2014