KARACHI, Dec 9: City Nazim Mustafa Kamal has said that a new system of tax collection will be introduced in the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board from next month to bring more consumers and areas into the tax net.

He told a delegation of the Asian development Bank (ADB) that the KWSB was supplying water to over 18 million inhabitants of the city but due to ill planning on part of the previous governments, many city localities were still not in the tax net.

The delegation called on him at his office and discussed issues relating to the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board.

He said that the present city government had taken several steps to increase the revenue base of the water utility and for the first time it introduced a monthly billing system to its 1.4 million consumers.

Mr Kamal said that at present the KWSB was distributing monthly bills to 1.1 million consumers and over 70 per cent of its consumers had started paying their dues.

He informed the ADB delegation that the total recovery of the KWSB during the last five months was higher than the whole previous year. He said he was not satisfied with the present state of recovery.

He maintained that the system could be improved further and by the beginning of next year when a systematic policy would be introduced in the KWSB to bring all those localities into the tax net which were using water but not paying the dues. He said the strategy had been prepared and it would be implemented in January 2007.

Mr Kamal said that previously the water utility was running with the help of government grants but now he wanted to make the KWSB a self-reliance organisation.

Highlighting the water and sewerage relating projects, the city nazim said that the city government had initiated Rs14 billion worth projects in different localities of the metropolis to improve the water supply.