KARACHI, July 20: The city nazim, Syed Mustafa Kamal inaugurated the city’s first filter plant in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, set up by the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) in collaboration with a Canadian and a local firm here on Thursday.

Talking to the residents of the Civic View Apartments, the nazim, who is also the chairman of the KWSB said that the provision of hygienic water to all the areas of the city was the top priority of the city government and in this regards a number of projects had already been completed while others were either currently under way or in the pipeline.

Some of these projects include completion of the K-3 project, whereby the city had got additional 100 million gallons of water per day, replacement of all the worn-out pipelines, KWSB’s own power plant to be set up at Dhabeji for overcoming loadshedding problems at its pumping stations, setting up of mini filter plants at UCs’ level, etc., he added.

KWSB Managing Director Brig Iftikhar Haider, Gulshan Town’s Naib Nazim Shoaib Akhtar, KWSB’s chief engineer (zone-II) Najm-i-Alam Sidiqqui, superintending engineer Fahim Akhtar Zaidi and others were also present on the occasion.

Referring to the mini filter plants project, the city nazim said that with a view to providing filtered as well as bacteria-free water to the citizens, the city government had already embarked upon its project of initially installing 600 community filter plants in all the 178 union councils of the metropolis, saying that the community filter plants’ water would be as good as any best quality mineral water available in the market. “In fact, the motive behind setting up such plants is to provide best quality water to the citizens free of cost,” Mr Kamal added.

Later, the nazim asked the vice-president of the Canadian firm, Ms Lin Armstrong, to ensure proper monitoring and maintenance of the plant, besides ensuring hygienic conditions around it. Ms Lin on the occasion informed the nazim that the cost of the plant was Rs1.5 million and the electricity expenses to be incurred on it would be only Rs6,000 per annum.

Elaborating, she said that one of the most salient features of the plant was that the salts remained in the filtered water after removing all sorts of bacteria from it.