KARACHI: Water worth four billion rupees is being stolen in the SITE area alone, depriving a large portion of the city from the regular supply and giving a push to water tanker business and illegal activities of ‘subsoil water mafia’.

It emerged during a briefing at the first board meeting of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC) which was formed recently under the supervision of Mayor Barrister Murtaza Wahab who became the chairman of the corporation in July 2023 after the Sindh governor gave his assent to the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation Bill, 2023.

The introductory meeting was also briefed about the recent action against illegal hydrants. It was said that more than 150 such hydrants were spotted operating in the city, making a fortune by stealing water and selling it to people across the metropolis. The city administration decided to continue the operation against water theft and illegal hydrants.

The caretaker cabinet had last month approved the appointment of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation board with eight ex-official members and six non-official members. The ex-officio members are the Karachi mayor (chairman) and the Grade-19 representatives of secretaries of local government, finance, P&D, city commissioner, director general of the Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority and the KWSC chief executive officer.

The non-official members are NED University Vice chancellor Dr Sarosh Lodhi, Zafar Iqbal, Ms Mahwish, Barrister Syed Shabir Shah, Prof Dr Huma Baqai, Tanzeel Pirzada and Kazi Kabir. Talking to Dawn after the meeting, Mayor Wahab said that the meeting had made a resolve to take effective measures and make every decision which would improve water supply to the city without protecting any individual or group’s interest.

“The meeting was told how during the recent efforts it was found that 13mgd water worth four billion rupees was being stolen in the SITE area alone,” he said. “It was a two-edged sword depriving the people of Karachi from regular water supply and damaging the KWSC financially as it wasn’t getting any revenue from this huge amount of water theft.”

When asked about involvement of local industrial units in the recently discovered water theft in SITE— the oldest and the largest designated industrial area of the country with more 2,400 factories— the city mayor didn’t blame the industrialists directly.

“I won’t say whether such units are responsible or not but definitely there’s a mafia exploiting the whole system and there’s also a parallel industry of subsoil water which is operating and prospering due to these leakages,” he added.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2023