KARACHI, Jan 31: City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal on Thursday inaugurated a newly-laid 56-inch-diameter trunk pipeline for providing additional five million gallons of water daily to various blocks of Clifton and its adjoining localities.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, he said that with the commissioning of Clifton’s water project, the duration of water supply to Clifton’s blocks 1 to 9, the Clifton Cantonment Board area, Clifton Bridge, Gizri, Punjab Colony, Delhi Colony, Chandio Village, Bakhshan Village, Dockyard, Naval Area, Keamari and its adjoining areas would double, from the present 12 hours to 24 hours daily.

He said the project costing Rs320 million was initiated a year ago and despite facing a number of difficulties in laying the pipelines, particularly while passing them through the main thoroughfares, the city government had now completed the task with great success.

Referring to the old pipeline of 5mgd laid in 1985 for Clifton and its adjoining localities, he said the supply from the pipeline had become quite insufficient because of a rapid increase in population of those areas. However, the present leadership of the city government had now provided additional 5mgd of water for those localities by laying a 56-inch-diameter trunk main and as such not only the quantity of water for those localities had been doubled, from 5mgd to 10mgd daily, but their supply timings had also been increased from 12 hours to 24 hours daily, he added.

At the outset, the nazim said the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board in the last two years had initiated development projects worth Rs27 billion out of which 99 per cent had been accomplished and the water utility would now focus on carrying out its routine maintenance work.

The inauguration ceremony was attended, among others, by KWSB managing director Ghulam Arif, Saddar Town Nazim Mohammad Dilawar and senior officials of the KWSB.

The nazim said that since Pakistan came into being only two trunk lines had been laid, whereas the Haq Parast leadership had laid 27 trunk lines during the last two years. He said the Haq Parast leadership had paid special attention to solving the long-standing problem of water supply.