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HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit, has directed the secretaries of finance and local bodies departments to personally appear before it on Aug 1.
It has asked the finance secretary to provide details along with breakup of the funds released to the Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) over the last 10 years and specify whether separate funds were released for Wasa.
The bench comprising Justice Salahuddin Panhwar and Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry was seized with a petition filed by Advocate Sajjad Ahmed Chandio regarding drinking water issue of Hyderabad.
Details of funds’ release sought, lack of chlorination termed alarming
It also ordered the chief secretary to appoint a competent officer as managing director of the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) within a week. The appointee must have reputation and skills in drinking water supply system, it said.
The bench asked the petitioner to also include the Cantonment Board Hyderabad (CBH) as a respondent.
The order was passed by the bench after hearing Hyderabad Commissioner Abbas Baloch, Wasa’s managing director Ghulam Mohammad Kaimkhani, additional MD Saleemuddin and finance director Mohsin Jafri as well as the petitioner.
Additional Advocate General (AAG) Sindh Allah Bachayo Soomro filed statements of Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) director general, Wasa managing director and others showing last five years’ procurement of alum/chlorine. Irfan Bughio represented HDA and Wasa officers.
The bench noted that the statement showed that no chlorine was used between 2014 and 2016 and in 2018, which was indeed alarming. It asked the commissioner to conduct a probe and submit his report to help ascertain whether criminal negligence was committed and whether funds were made available to Wasa.
The bench also asked the LG secretary to appear in person and explain comprehensive mechanism to regulate the water issue of urban areas of Hyderabad by providing a roadmap.
Regarding Wasa officers’ contention that Sindh government was not releasing funds/granting aid for water distribution, the court ordered the finance secretary to submit a complete breakup of the funds released to the HDA over the last 10 years specifying whether a separate budget was provided to Wasa for water supply. The bench ordered the finance and LG secretaries to personally appear before it and explain the delay caused in the release of funds.
The court adjourned the matter to Aug 1.
During the hearing, the Wasa MD informed the bench that he was holding the additional charge of the HDA director general. On this, Justice Panhwar wondered why dual charge was given to him. He also asked the MD why chlorine was not used in the specified years despite allocation of budget for the purpose. This summons registration of an FIR against the then MD, he remarked.
MD Kaimkhani admitted that chlorine was not used in 2017-18 as it was not available then. He explained that 240kg of chlorine a day was required for Wasa’s 30MGD (million gallon per day) filtration plant. “The court can remove me [over the lapse],” he remarked. According to Mr Kaimkhani, Wasa purchases chlorine from two Lahore-based companies. It supplies filtered water from its plant but the actual problem lies in the distribution system, where it gets mixed with effluent in the broken drainage conduits.
He stated that Rs400m schemes for 2019-20 had been approved by Sindh government for water supply lines.
Commissioner Abbas Baloch brought it to the court’s notice that Wasa lacked capacity of executing various works after many of its engineers retired. “During a recent surge in typhoid cases, we learnt that water supply lines are mixing up with drainage lines,” he said. He contested Wasa officers’ claim that government did not provide grants to the agency.
Wasa’s finance director Mohsin Jafri interjected to argue that Wasa provided filtered water worth Rs471m to government departments while provincial government allocated just Rs125m annually under the head of water charges; thus a Rs346m deficit was being borne.
“Provincial departments owe Rs2.6bn to Wasa. We are also not able to pay salaries to employees for five months,” he said, adding that Wasa’s subsidy of Rs15m was discontinued in 1992.
Mr Baloch also stated that Sindh government wanted to reconcile these bills while Wasa wanted deduction of water charges at source.
Petitioner Chandio contended that service stations were getting water from Wasa and domestic consumers were forced to seek private water supply through tanker service. He said that domestic users were blamed for unpaid bills. He said that commercial connections were allowed while recoveries were not properly made.
Mohsin Jafri undertook to provide details of service stations and recovery of water charges from them. He said that 67pc recovery in commercial sector was made. The CBH, he added, paid one month’s bill to Wasa after six months while Rs3.1m monthly water/sewerage billing to it was being regularly done.
Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2019
