HYDERABAD: The Supreme Court-mandated judicial commission on water quality and sanitation in Sindh has directed the Hyderabad commissioner to determine whether the industries department or industries have to pay water charges to the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa).

The one-man commission headed by retired Justice Amir Hani Muslim met officers of the departments concerned and also visited Wasa’s reservoirs here on Sunday.

Wasa managing director Agha Abdul Raheem informed the commission that there were issues of payment with the industries department.

It was disputed by deputy chief engineer of the Sindh Industrial Trading Estate (SITE).

Irrigation officials said that SITE was supposed to make payment against water supply directly to the irrigation department and that Wasa had nothing to do with that. However, the Wasa MD contested the claim and said there were certain industries which were being supplied water through Wasa’s pipelines and, therefore, industries department was required to make payment. Justice Muslim observed that even this position was disputed by SITE representative, saying that if Wasa had provided connection on its own to industries independently, the industries department was not obliged to make payments and Wasa should recover payments.

The commission said that instead of travelling into issues, the chairman of [the SC-appointed] task force should ask the commissioner to hear parties and fix responsibility, if any.

If commissioner concludes that industries department or industries have to pay, he will intervene and ensure recovery of water charges. This should be settled within 10 days from the date of directive.

The commission asked the task force chairman, Jamal Mustafa Syed, to interact with the industries secretary as far as the issue of Kotri’s Combined Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) was concerned. He was also asked to expedite the process. “Negligence on the part of industries of SITE will expose them to prosecution. The chairman task force is given one month’s timeline to see that things start working, failing which agencies will be assigned this task,” Justice Muslim said.

About the effluent plant of Nooriabad, the commission was informed that on Oct 25, requests for proposals (RFP) would be opened and further timeline fixed. The judge said that work should not be confined to such timeline. He said the chief secretary should personally look into these issues and ensure that proposed plant started working at an early date. He said all issues be resolved and less time was consumed on correspondence as the issue had direct nexus with the general public, which was being compelled to drink contaminated water.

The commission observed that the task force chairman through the commissioner should see that the work plan, provided by Wasa in regard to its 10MGD filtration plant, was being followed. No concession on that score shall be granted. Commissioner Hyderabad along with the Wasa MD would visit the area, the judge said.

Wasa’s executive engineers would be on visit round the clock within their areas and would be updating their MD, who would in turn update the commission every day through Whatsapp so that failure of pumping station or any other leakage and/or blunder should not recur, said the commission, adding that that plants which were rehabilitated recently by Wasa should be visited periodically by the deputy commissioner or commissioner’s representative to update whether maintenance and operation of these plants was proper or not. The MD should send periodical reports of his personal visits at least once a week, it said.

The commission was informed that Wasa’s old 10MGD plant would be made functional in December. the PC-I of the rapid gravity filtration plant (RGFP) of unit-4 filtration plant had been sent to the planning and development department. Slow sand filtration plant in Matiari had been rehabilitated and RFGP was made functional earlier.

The commission was also informed that the federal funding regarding southern and eastern sewerage treatment plants remained slow due to which the work stayed standstill. As per the commission’s earlier directive, the PC-I for their work was sent to the P&D department but some objections were raised.

The commission directed Wasa to clear these objections within seven days. The commission noted that work on Hussainabad filtration plant rehabilitation was under way and encroachments within the ‘work area’ had been cleared.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2018