KARACHI, Aug 27: City Nazim Naimatullah Khan has said that about one-third amount of the Rs29 billion package, approved in principle by President Pervez Musharraf for the rehabilitation of civic infrastructure, is meant for water and sewerage plans.

Reiterating that the city’s major problems pertained to water and sewerage, he expressed hope that the officials of the water and sanitation department would use the huge amount judiciously, considering it a trust of the people.

He was speaking at a dinner hosted by the KWSB’s engineers and officers association in honour of water and sanitation department’s outgoing executive district officer, Brig (r) Sardar Javed Ashraf and newly appointed EDO Brig Asif Ghazali, at the lawns of COD Filter Plant.

Referring to the demand of the KWSB engineers and officers, the City Nazim assured them that he would shortly help solving their problems in consultation with Brig Asif Ghazali.

At the outset, the City Nazim lauded the efforts of the water and sanitation department’s outgoing EDO Brig Javed Ashraf, for taking a number of measures aimed at improving the city’s water and sewerage facilities. He expressed hope that the new EDO, Brig Ghazali, would leave no stone unturned in resolving the water and sewerage problems, as he had already served Karachiites when the Hub dam had first gone dry and when the KWSB had chalked out its crisis management programme to meet the water requirements of the localities hooked to the Hub source.

Speaking on the occasion, Brig Javed Ashraf said that he was leaving the organization with the satisfaction that the measures, which he had taken under the guidance of City Nazim, would shortly bear fruits.

In this regard, he pointed out that with the completion of K- III project by Dec 2005 whereby the city would get additional 100 million gallons of water per day, the gap between supply and demand would be reduced considerably.

In addition, people residing in sprawling townships of former district West, would start getting filtered water by 2005, as the work on the filter plant being set up near Hub pumping station was now progressing at a satisfactory pace, he added.

Brig Ghazali said that since the city’s water supply system had not been expanded considering the rapid growth of population, the gap between supply and demand was increasing with each passing year.

Emphasising the need for improving water and sewerage facilities, he said that with the cooperation of officials of the W&S department and Town Nazims, he would manage to run the affairs of the water utility in a missionary zeal.

Earlier, the president of KWSB engineers and the officers association, Misbahuddin Fareed, had demanded of the City Nazim and the new EDO to bring an end to the resentment being prevailed among the officials owing to the inordinate delay in their promotions and move-overs.

Deploring that the provincial government has not yet allotted them a piece of land for the KWSB cooperative housing society although the officials had challans of their plots in 1987, he demanded Nazim’s help in getting the land so that they could build their houses. He also demanded of City Nazim to withdraw the show-cause notices ,which were earlier issued to some officials, as they had shown improvement in recovering water dues.