KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said on Monday that the federal government had backed out of its commitment to share 50 per cent of the total expenditures of the Greater Karachi Sewerage Plan (S-III), which was an injustice to the people of Sindh.

He said that he would fight to get the committed share from the federal government in the larger interest of the people of Karachi.

He was presiding over a meeting regarding completion of the S-III project here at the CM House. Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, planning and development chairperson Naheed Shah, finance secretary Najam Shah, LG secretary Khalid Hyder Shah and others were also present.

Briefing the CM, the LG minister said that the S-III project was aimed at improving environmental and sanitation conditions of Karachi through a well-integrated system of collection, treatment and disposal of sewage.

He added that the existing sewage disposal system lacked treatment facilities and required conveyance network for sewage to divert it to treatment plants, which were currently being discharged into the sea.

The CM directs excise & taxation dept to introduce readable digital cards in place of vehicles’ registration books

Ms Shah, the P&D chairperson, said that the project was approved by Ecnec for Rs7.98 billion in Sept 2007 under which the federal government had to share 50pc cost and the remaining 50pc was to be borne by the provincial government.

The scheme was revised and was approved by Ecnec at Rs36.11bn on Feb 7, 2018. The project has two components — Lyari River Basin of Rs21.31bn and Malir River Basin of Rs14.799bn.

The project encompasses the transmission of sewage flowing into Lyari and Malir River Basin through underground RCC conduit and its treatment at sewage treatment plants, before its ultimate disposal into the sea.

CM Shah said that with the completion of S-III there would be clean coastal water, which would improve the overall health and hygiene conditions and boost fishery export. It would help in conservation of marine ecology, he added.

Concluding the meeting, the CM vowed to fight the case of Karachi and force the federal government to fulfil its commitment of providing 50pc cost.

Centre blamed for K-IV delay

LG Minister Ghani told reporters that because of the federal government’s constant delays in releasing its promised funds and sanctioning of dedicated quota of water, the city’s bulk water supply scheme, K-IV, was impeded at the cost of increasing people’s suffering.

He said Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Firdous Shamim Naqvi of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf should influence his party and the federal government to release the funds it had to contribute to the K-IV project and provide separate quota of water for it.

“Instead of misguiding people and criticising the provincial government for baseless reasons, the opposition leader should go to Islamabad and ask his leaders to help in completion of such a vital project for this teeming city,” said Mr Ghani.

Mr Naqvi had told a press conference a day before that Karachi and rest of Sindh had been suffering because of the policies of the Pakistan Peoples Party’s leadership and its government in the province.

Mr Ghani said Islamabad was bound to provide half of the required funds for K-IV and S-III projects and the PTI’s leadership in Sindh should take responsibility to ask their government to act as per agreements.

He said the claim of the PTI leadership that the federal government had spent Rs12bn on K-IV project was “utterly false”.

“The fact is that most expenditures on this project have been borne by the Sindh government.”

He said the government had clarified several times in the provincial legislature about the reasons behind increase in the total expenditures of the project. “Unfortunately, our opposition leader could not understand whatever is said in the house.”

He said the provincial government had repeatedly requested Islamabad for sanctioning additional water for providing 650 million gallons per day water through the K-IV system, but the latter had never given an encouraging reply.

He said the PTI’s provincial leadership had an agenda to malign the Sindh government on groundless reasons and instead of blaming their government in Islamabad they targeted the provincial government.

He said in the initial summary of the project, the total cost was calculated as Rs25bn. However, the PC-I had ignored two vital components — power plant and the system to supply water to the city — which were to be integrated in the project. “It was the reason behind increased cost of the project.”

He said so far the provincial government had spent Rs15bn on the project, which had been contracted to the Frontier Works Organisation, which was a federal government entity.

Minister Ghani said that the Sindh government was committed to complete the K-IV project at any cost.

“We’ll get this project completed even if the federal government does not pay a penny,” he said.

Digitisation of vehicles’ registration books

The chief minister while presiding over a meeting has directed the excise and taxation department to introduce readable digital cards in place of vehicles’ registration books.

He said that the registration books of vehicles had been obsolete all over the world. “We should take benefit from modern technology and introduce readable cards on the pattern of banks so that their details can be read during checking,” he said.

The meeting was attended by Excise and Taxation Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla, excise secretary Raheem Shaikh, finance secretary Najam Shah and others.

Minister Chawla told the chief minister that his department was given a recovery target of Rs72.872bn and it would be achieved by the end of this month.

The department recovers seven taxes — motor vehicle tax, excise enactment, infrastructure cess, cotton fee, professional tax, property tax and entertainment duty.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2019