HYDERABAD: Senior officers of Sindh planning and development (P&D) department informed Supreme Court-mandated commission on water quality and drainage in Sindh on Saturday that the cost of eastern sewerage treatment plant (ESTP) at Darya Khan pumping station of Phuleli Canal was increased thrice due to change in the plant’s technology without seeking approval from competent forum.

The head of the one-man commission retired Justice Amir Hani Muslim at a meeting held at judges’ lodge to review progress on sewerage and water supply schemes expressed serious reservations over escalation of the ESTP cost.

He called for rationalising the cost whose revision was recommended by Water and Sanitation Agency and told the P&D officers that the commission had nothing to do with the technical pretexts for the cost escalation; it just wanted it to be rationalised.

“Government’s funds are not illegitimate that they may be used as Wasa desires,” said the judge indignantly. He was shocked to learn how funds meant for two schemes, ESTP and SSTP, were unilaterally spent on only ESTP. The P&D’s role pertained to expeditious execution of such schemes, he said.

The treatment plant is being built to stop contamination of Phulelli Canal that serves as a major source of fresh water for a large population living along the canal embankments downstream. The plant’s scheme is federal government-funded and came under the purview of Hyderabad Development Project (HDP) which was originally designed during Gen Pervez Musharraf’s regime with a cost of Rs915.3m in 2007. Its revised cost stood at Rs3,100m.

P&D Secretary Dr Shireen Mustafa and member of services P&D Khalid Siddiqui informed the commission that the change of technology, from waste stabilisation pond as per original project cost-I to sludge activation system on turnkey basis, caused three times increase in the scheme’s cost without approval of the competent forum.

Task force chairman Jamal Mustafa Syed, commission’s registrar Ghulam Mustafa Channa, Hyderabad Commissioner Abdul Waheed Shaikh, Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Aslam Soomro, Wasa’s managing director Masood Jumani and others attended the meeting.

“Rs915.3m were to be utilised both for ESTP and SSTP but Wasa spent the entire funding on ESTP. It is only when they submitted revised cost to us that we came to know about the anomaly,” said Dr Shireen, adding that tendering process for SSTP did not get under way.

Mr Siddiqui said the entire cost was utilised for one component, the ESTP, excluding the second component of SSTP, which was relatively small.

Wasa MD Masood Jumani explained that it was done way back in 2007 when Sarfaraz Shah, who was now living abroad, was HDP’s project director. He conceded it was wrongly done and bids were called for ESTP alone and not for SSTP.

On his disclosure, Justice Muslim asked chairman of task force to see what was the way forward and he requested the judge that it should be discussed immediately after Eidul Azha to find all the deviations made by Wasa.

The judge said that P&D representatives should scrutinise the schemes as per their procedure. Dr Shireen said that the department would certainly examine the scheme before taking it up with the federal government.

Mr Siddiqui said that ESTP was a federally-funded scheme and whenever Sindh government took up the issue it found itself in an awkward position. The commission directed the P&D officers to clear the scheme after examining it.

The officers informed that the scheme worth Rs3,100m was submitted for revision on April 13, 2018 and then it was resubmitted on Aug 8 for revision to Rs2,665.138m and it would still be examined by the department.

The commission asked the officers to personally visit the ESTP at Darya Khan pumping station, SSTP and filtration plant in Latifabad Unit-4 and carry out assessment. The commission also ordered that the issue of encroachment on Tulsidas pumping station would be addressed by Pakistan Railways and Wasa MD would coordinate with the department.

The commission was informed about stay order obtained by a resident of Latifabad Unit-4 who lived near the filtration plant and the judge asked the DC and Wasa to pursue the case so that the execution of the scheme was not hampered by the stay order.

P&D officers visited the 5MGD filtration plant in Latifabad Unit-4, Tulsidas sewerage pumping station, ESTP, and Wasa’s lagoons in Karan Khan Shoro village off Jamshoro road for technical assessment.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2018