KARACHI, Nov 17: City Nazim Naimatullah Khan has demanded of the federal government to hand over the land presently controlled by works division to the city government so that it could resolve problems of the people living there.

He was speaking at a ceremony held in connection with the distribution of challans of water connections to the residents of Works Co-operative Society in Block-19 of Gulshan-i-Iqbal on Sunday night.

The Managing Director of KWSB, Brig Asif Ghazali, Gulshan Town Nazim Abdul Wahab, DMD Syed Akhlaq Hussain and hundreds of other people were present on the occasion.

The City Nazim, who is also the KWSB chairman, said that the water board spent Rs130 million every month on payment of electricity bills and this payment would be possible only if citizens paid their dues.

He said that the area where water connections were given was controlled by the works division. He said that the works division was transferred to Islamabad, due to which people had to go to the capital to get their problems resolved. The charge of this land should be given to the city government in order to facilitate the masses, he added.

Brig Ghazali said that the water connections were provided after removing all legal complications on the directives of City Nazim. He said that Rs14 billion of the Rs29 billion Karachi package would be spent on improvement of water and sewerage system. Lines would be changed and pumping stations would be improved through this amount, he added.

He said that K-3 project, which was initiated for meeting the future requirements of water, would be completed within next two years. UC Nazim Abdul Aziz said that the council was given Rs6.4 million that would be spent on roads construction. —PPI