KARACHI: The Supreme Court-mandated commission on water and sanitation in Sindh on Monday expressed displeasure over the non-compliance with its order about transfer of water and sewerage schemes and sought from the local government secretary a list of such projects of the entire province with their status.

While hearing a matter regarding some schemes in Mirpurkhas, head of the commission retried Justice Amir Hani Muslim observed that in the first place such schemes should have been assigned to the regular formation instead of the local government, which had no expertise as far as sewerage and water supply schemes were concerned.

However, despite the order passed by the Supreme Court as well as the commission, such schemes had not been transferred to regular formation by the government, he added.

A contractor informed the commission that a scheme in Mirpurkhas had not been completed for want of funds while a former project director said it was spread over more than two years.

The commission directed the secretary for the public health engineering department to verify the execution of the work and the quality in conformity with PC-1 and PC-2 within 15 days and thereafter the fate of those schemes would be decided.

It also asked the local government secretary to provide a list of the schemes related to sewerage and water supply of the whole province being executed by the local government department with their status.

The special initiatives department (SID) had been dissolved on a directive of the apex court and therefore those schemes should have been transferred to the public health engineering department, but the directives had not been complied with, the commission added.

A former project director of the now defunct SID told the commission that he was looking after difference schemes of roads, water supply and drainage in Thatta and Sujawal districts and contended that those projects were executed in conformity with PC- 1 and 2.

The commission, which had summoned the officer after finding some flaws in schemes during its recent visit to Thatta, ruled that the same was to be verified by the public health engineering secretary within a week.

The former project director undertook that if there was any error in these schemes, it would be rectified by him through the contractors within 15 days.

After the verification, the public health secretary would take over the schemes of water supply and drainage, the commission ruled and directed the local government secretary to provide manpower and budget for those schemes.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2018