LAHORE: The proposed Lahore Water and Sanitation Company (LWSC) may outsource its three civic functions — operation and maintenance, revenue collection and design -- once it is functional after the formation of its board of directors and appointment of chief executive officer and other staffers, Dawn has learnt.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif recently approved a Lahore Development Authority’s (LDA’s) proposal seeking LWSC’s establishment to improve water supplies and sanitation in the city.

The decision is being resisted by the Water and Sanitation Authority (Wasa) staff welfare union. They postponed their protest drive after the government assured them that no Wasa employee would be removed.

According to a working paper submitted to the chief minister in a LDA governing body meeting, the LWSC will stick to monitoring, evaluation and data analyzing alone.

“It is proposed that the LWSC be a lean entity, structured principally to engage and manage outsourced services”, reads the paper. “It shall be responsible for water supply, wastewater and aquifer management and have the capabilities to deal with the affairs related to design, installation, procurement, operations, maintenance and revenue collection on its own or outsourcing these functions and monitoring, evaluation and data analysis on its own.”

The need to create the LWSC was felt after the chief minister held meetings with officials on deteriorating water and sanitation situations on January 30 and April 8, 2014.

The proposed organisation will be incorporated as a company under section 42 of the Companies Ordinance of 1984 as a not-for-profit association. The company will be limited by guarantee and with no share capital.

The company will be governed by a nine-member BoD.

The proposed BoD members are: Khalid Mohtadullah, former member of water, Wapda; Nazir Wattoo, head of the Changa Panni Programme; Dr Attaur Rehman, UET professor; Dr Saeed Shafqat or Dr Bashir Ahmad Khan, FC College; Ali Cheema from LUMS; the secretary of housing; the Lahore commissioner; LDA director general and Wasa managing director, BoD secretary. The paper has no information about the nomination of the BoD chairman.

The company will hire professionals on competitive salaries and those Wasa employees who meet the requisite criteria will be inducted in the LWSC. The LWSC will takeover Wasa working in a phased programme in four years.

“It is proposed that the company will enter into a ‘Services and Asset Management Contract’ with Wasa, which shall allow incremental expansion of services and coverage areas”, reads the paper.

In the first phase, the company will manage drinking water and domestic water supply services in Johar Town pilot areas by setting-up reverse osmosis water treatment plants, operate bottled water services, collect revenue from bottled water sale, establish public drinking water taps and operate public drinking water taps through self or outsourcing means.

To provide domestic use of water, the LWSC will takeover and operate Wasa tube wells, establish new, rehabilitate, or retire tube wells, install and operate automated control system of tube wells, establish overhead reservoirs and install net metering on water connections through self or outsourcing basis, according to the paper.

In the subsequent phases, the company will take over revenue collection as well as operations and management of remaining water supply distribution network in Johar Town. It will then expand it first contractual obligations to next two pilot areas of Shadbagh and Tajpura.

Under the tentative service migration plan, the LWSC will make efforts to have the entire water supply, wastewater, and sanitation and aquifer system affectively functional in the city by the end of the fiscal year 2016-17.

The company will have professionals for the posts of chief executive officer, Company secretary, chief operating officer, chief financial officer and managers for different departments.