HYDERABAD, Jan 11: The managing director of Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa), HDA, has announced a new package to facilitate the consumers to clear their dues.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club here on Friday, Abdul Jabbar Abbasi said that under the new package, the consumers would pay their arrears of two months with the current bill till their dues were cleared.

He appealed to the consumers to clear their arrears taking advantage of the new package which was announced under the instructions from Hyderabad District Nazim, Dr Makhdoom Rafiquzzaman, and in consultation with the tehsil Nazims.

He said that although other water supply organizations of the country had increased water charges twice, Wasa had announced no increase since 1994.

Answering questions, Mr Abbasi said that 98,038 consumers were registered with Wasa out of which only 28,000 were paying their bills regularly and among them only 6,000 consumers were also paying arrears.

He regretted that 70,000 consumers were not paying any water charges.

He said that there was no law to compel the defaulters to pay their bills regularly. He, however, said that the elected Nazims had made a commitment to ensure the recovery of arrears under the new package.

When asked why the water supply of defaulters was not disconnected, he said that it was an impossible task as the pipes were buried deep under the ground and even if all out efforts were made, only six to seven connections could be disconnected in a day.

Answering another question, Wasa chief said that it could take five years to recover the arrears under the new package.

He said that since 1992 the government had stopped grant and Wasa was running into deficit and added that between 30 to 40 million rupees liability had to be paid.

He said that every month Wasa had to pay salaries to the tune of Rs8 million according to the new pay scales but most of the people had stopped paying water charges since Sep last assuming that they did not have to pay any water charges under the new local government system.

He said that the Sindh Governor had sanctioned R500 million to bring about an improvement in the water supply and sewerage system of Hyderabad City for which four new filter plants would be constructed.

He said that from the ADBP allocations of Rs350 million, Rs30 million had been released and new schemes had been sent to the government for approval.