KARACHI: The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board has decided that no institution including the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, district municipal corporations, district council or any other government body could carry out any water or sewerage work without getting prior approval from the utility.

The decision was taken in the meeting of KWSB’s governing body, which was presided over by its chairman Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani, here on Tuesday. The meeting was also attended by Mayor Wasim Akhtar, KWSB managing director Asadullah Khan and others.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Ghani said that he surrendered his own power as the KWSB chairman that empowered him to grant permission for any task. He said now the chairman could not grant any approval without the consent of the governing body and before the scrutiny by a committee.

He said that the governing body took the decision in the light of the directives of retired Supreme Court judge, Justice Amir Hani Muslim, who heads a SC-mandated water commission.

He said all necessary measures were being taken by the KWSB to ensure implementation of the water commission’s directives, including owning all those localities — cantonment board, katchi abadis, private societies — where KWSB’s infrastructure did not exist but where it had to be involved during emergencies.

In this connection, he said that the meeting decided that the KWSB would lay necessary infrastructure by preparing a list of all such areas so that such schemes could be made part of the annual development programme.

He hoped that in a few years all such localities would have the KWSB infrastructure.

He said that the governing body also decided that it would not be mandatory to pick an officer of any “cadre post” for the appointment of KWSB’s managing director. Any official from any cadre or an official of technical post could be made water utility’s chief provided he possessed an engineering degree, he said.

The meeting also decided to issue licences by March 31 to all those firms which have been doing business of supplying subsoil water. Fees would also be recovered from them with effect from Dec 28, 2018 — the date when the Sindh cabinet gave its approval in this regard.

Another decision, the minister said, pertained to promotion of over 250 employees as superintending engineers and XEN.

He said that it was also decided to recover the land of the KWSB which had been encroached upon.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2019