THE water and sanitation sector in Karachi is faced with a crisis-like situation. KW&SB, the main formal service delivery institution, lacks accountability, transparency and operational autonomy, legal ambiguities, a dysfunctional governance structure, technical inadequacy, tariff imbalances and financial bankruptcy.

Recently, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board management has initiated a series of reforms in areas such as revenue and operational management and improving customer services. For lasting and holistic impact, these reforms have to be embedded in institutional reforms and the related issues of governance.

Water supply and sanitation service delivery levels in Karachi are very poor with serious economic and social costs to the city and the citizens. Households connected to the KW&SB network receive water only for three to four hours per day. Intermittent water supply has severe public health consequences, as clean water in pipelines becomes contaminated in the absence of sustained water pressure. High levels of leakages/water theft (30 per cent) in the network make contamination more severe.

Quite a sizeable population lives in informal settlements - Katchi abadis - with inadequate physical and social services. It is estimated that over 90 per cent of the homes have linked themselves illegally to government water systems. Citizens without reliable piped water supply depend on a variety of alternative supply sources including water vendors and manual water connection.

Water vendors include kiosks, vans, pick-ups, donkey carts, push carts, bhistee or manual water carriers. Sources for manual water collection include water tankers; KW&SB standpipes; public or private shallow wells, and neighbours who have either water connections or their own water sources such as private boreholes.

Poor households incur multiple coping costs to obtain water in addition to facing the associated health hazards (ground water contamination). They construct water storage tanks; they have to pay either KW&SB officials or to tanker drivers to obtain water supply; they have extended distribution pipelines, or constructed awami tanks – community tanks filled by water tankers (e.g. in Orangi and Baldia areas).

Water is also supplied in significant amounts to those parts of Karachi where water supply systems do not exist or function though demand still outweighs supply. Poor households unable to obtain ‘general public’ deliveries pay 50 per cent more for a commercial tanker delivery (if available) or buy untreated and contaminated water delivered from private hydrants (sourced from shallow boreholes).

KW&SB investments in the past have mostly augmented production and transmission, neglecting efficiency improvements, rehabilitation and maintenance. Networks and facilities have therefore deteriorated, inefficiencies and losses have made operations wasteful and financial capacity constraints have prevented investment planning based on an integrated view of capital expenditures, operation and maintenance and least cost principles.

Absence of a systematic policy or regulatory framework makes it difficult to hold KW&SB accountable for its performance. KW&SB is still managed in terms of the KW&SB Act of 1996, but it also functions under the conditions of the Sindh Local Government Ordinance (SLGO) of 2001, which has marked implications for its place within the broader devolution process and its relative relationships with the provincial, city and town level governments in its area of jurisdiction. The KW&SB Act of 1996 provides for a Governing Board that has barely met over the past few years.

KW&SB has limited control over influencing tariff re-adjustment and there is no independent regulation of tariffs. In the absence of an effective tariff structure and a process of tariff setting that considers economically rational operational factors, there has been no incentive for greater efficiency or for customers to pay. KW&SB’s relationship with consumers also needs much improvement in order to mobilize public support for action against illegal connections, encroachment of pipelines and other malpractices that undermine operations. The Reform Process: To tackle such serious and deep rooted institutional defects, mobilisation and support for change is desirable not only within the institutions itself but amongst the widest possible range of stakeholders. Without a viable governance framework that identifies the appropriate roles and responsibilities of relevant stakeholders in policy making, service delivery and regulation, the long-term effects of technical, financial or internal management changes cannot be secured.

The goal within the broader context is to reform the water and sanitation sector in terms of ensuring institutional and financial viability of the sector and enhancing customer orientation and accountability and therefore improving the quality of life.

A viable reform initiative would have to be based on the following important considerations: achieving political commitment; building mutual understanding in a heavily contested institutional environment; identification of approaches for maximising the capacity of all contributing stakeholders; and ensuring sustainability of actions.

In the end, the fundamental lesson has to be learnt: “Fixing water and sanitation service delivery is not about fixing the pipes - it is about fixing the institutions that fixing those pipes”.