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KARACHI, June 28: KWSB Managing Director Brig Iftekhar Hyder has said the KWSB has paid Rs1 billion since July 2003 to the KESC as electricity charges and, according to its accounts, it has yet to pay dues of Rs660 million.
He said the water board was taking steps for paying dues to the KESC and it was making payments as and when water dues were recovered. Referring to the disconnection of power supply to KWSB offices and residential colonies, the KWSB MD pointed out that the water board was a public service utility working day and night for providing the facilities of drinking water and sewerage disposal.
He said whatever revenue it collected on account of water tax, a major chunk of it was paid to the KESC as electricity charges. Brig Iftekhar said that except for Karachi, WAPDA recovered electricity charges from all water supply organizations throughout the country on the basis of agriculture tariff, while the KESC was recovering these charges on a commercial basis.
He said that on Monday the water board delivered a cheque for Rs30.027 million to the KESC. Brig Iftekhar said the KESC should reconsider its decision as power disconnection could affect the water supply and sewerage disposal as a result of which the people would face hardship.
DISCONNECTION: The KESC has appreciated the Sindh and city governments for making payments of their respective dues, and said it had begun disconnecting power supply to KWSB offices on Monday afternoon.
According to the KESC, various offices of the Sindh government and the city government made payment to the KESC by Monday afternoon except the KWSB. Although all arrangements were finalized to stop power supply to all installations of perennial defaulters early in the morning, the action was delayed in larger public interest.
The KESC said the water board had signalled for clearing their dues and by afternoon a cheque for Rs30 million was sent against one year arrears of Rs950 million. Later, the Sindh government also contributed Rs400 million while the KWSB was still in default of Rs520 million which it was supposed to clear before May 31.
Keeping the inconvenience that may have been caused to the people with water shortage, the KESC decided not to disconnect supply to water pumping stations for the time being. However, power supply to all other offices of the KWSB would be disconnected.
In the first phase, the KESC disconnected power supply to the head office and offices at '9th Mile', and all the administrative offices would face power cut later if the balance of Rs520 was not received before June 30, a KESC spokesman said. -APP
