THATTA: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah visited Keenjhar Lake — the head source of K-IV project — here on Saturday and received a briefing on the mega project from Frontier Works Organi­sation (FWO) commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Usman Aftab.

Speaking to the media, the chief minister said that the K-IV project would never have seen the light of day had it not been redesigned. “It’s will and sincerity of the [Sindh] government that is going to turn the dream into a reality,” he remarked.

Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani, FWO Director General Major General Inam Hyder Malik, Karachi Water and Sewerage Board Managing Director Khalid Shaikh, K-IV project director Asad Zamin, besides Thatta Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Nawaz Sohu and senior officials of the departments concerned were also present.

Murad given briefing during his visit to Keenjhar Lake

He said that the government had incorporated “missing components” into the project to make its execution and viability possible.

Referring to the original design of the project, Mr Shah said it appeared “ill-conceived” because the major components like a bridge on Nooriabad-Thatta road above the canal, availability of 50MW power plants, several small and big bridges, required land and pumping stations were missing.

When these components were included one after the other, the project cost ultimately started going up, he said.

The CM said that the K-IV project was meant for supplying 650 million gallon (or 1,200 cusecs) a day to Karachi. It was supposed to be implemented in three phases.

Mr Shah noted that the project steering committee for K-IV had never been formed and, therefore, many problems cropped up during the period for want of a formal mechanism to address issues at higher/policymaking level.

The feasibility study for the project was conducted in July 2007 and it was decided to channelise water through the alternative route from the water supply system of KWSB via Dhabeji. This route (No. 8) was among the nine selected for being technically most feasible and most economical, he said.

The PC-1 for its phase-1 was prepared in 2010. However, due to a delay in the processing and approvals, it was finally approved in 2014 by Ecnec. The actual execution of phase-1 was started in June 2016 ie nine years after the feasibility study was finalised, he observed.

Now, a broad-based composition of the project steering committee has been constituted and supplementary projects designed under the supervision of the chairman of planning and development.

He recalled that the Supreme Court-mandated judicial commission on water quality and drainage system passed several orders and issued many directives for addressing the bottlenecks and accelerating pace of the K-IV project.

He said that the augmentation project, which should have been initiated simultaneously with the K-IV project, was not initiated by the stakeholders concerned. The design of the augmentation project was finally initiated in April 2018 which now stood completed.

He said that the PC-1 costing Rs19.962 billion was submitted to the LG department for further approval from the planning and development department but the LG department sent a modified PC-1 costing Rs18.679bn to the P&D department.

“We are preparing estimates of the project based on real market rates ... once they are prepared, the federal government will be approached for cost sharing,” he said, adding: “I have discussed the matter with Federal Water Resources Minister Faisal Vawda, who has assured me of his full support in this regard.”

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2018