IN a meeting chaired by the Sindh chief minister recently, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) managing director said that Karachi’s official population was 17 million and its daily water requirement at the rate of 45 gallons per person was 918 million gallons daily. This is not correct.

The average water consumption per person is 25 gallons daily which means about 425 milion gallons daily, and not 918mgd let alone the astonishing 1,200 mgd claimed by the KWSB chief.

The MD said daily water supply to the city is 580mgd while total daily water losses are about 30 per cent, which means 174mgd. The water board chief did not specify how he had worked out the KWSB’s losses were 30 per cent. The maximum permissible limit worldwide is only eight per cent.

Water theft is the cause of the large difference of 22 per cent between permissible loss and that claimed by the KWSB chief. In support of my contention I quote the following reports and excerpts from this newspaper:

“Organised gangs involved in water theft from Dhabeji, Gharo and Haleji conduits were busted and six suspects, including two executive engineers (XENs) of the KWSB, were arrested during a grand operation launched against water theft.” (June 29)

A letter appeared on Sept 1 says: “some lower staff of the KWSB, are in league with those stealing water from a site located in Sharifabad behind Usman Memorial Hospital.”

A news report (July 11) says “Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani has directed senior officials of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board to submit a report within 48 hours regarding what he called ‘artificial water crisis’ in the metropolis.”

The Sindh chief minister should look into it.

A Citizen
Hyderabad

(2)

THIS is with reference to the monthly water, sewerage, conservancy and fire bill issued by the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board.

On the back of this bill, there is a list of the banks and financial institutions authorised for receiving the payments. I was taken aback to see the names of KASB Bank and NIB Bank in this list. Please correct me if I am wrong but these banks are no longer in existence as they merged with Bank Islami and MCB Bank Limited in year 2015 and 2017 respectively.

I wonder whether authorities concerned have ever noticed this anomaly.

Nadeem Akhtar
Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2019