HYDERABAD, Dec 23: The first additional district and sessions judge on Thursday remanded Water and Sanitation Agency Bashir Awan executive engineer in judicial custody in the water contamination case after his interim pre-arrest bail was dismissed by the Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit bench.
The pre-arrest bail to the Wasa official had been granted in the sum of Rs100,000 by the high court two months back but it was dismissed for non-prosecution when he did not attend the court.
Mr Awan's counsel filed an application for restoration of his bail which was fixed for hearing on Thursday. The water contamination case was adjourned till Jan 11. Mr Awan had been challenged by the Market investigation police in the case lodged under a directive of the Sindh chief secretary, though his name was not mentioned in the FIR.
FUNDS RELEASED: HDA director-general Mr Tahir Ahmed has said that stalled works of sewerage and water supply schemes will be completed with an amount of Rs100 million released from the Sindh governor's package for the city.
He was giving a briefing to members of the district council on Thursday. He said the Sindh chief minister had ordered the release of the entire package of Rs241 million for the city.
He said Rs100 million would be utilised by June 2005 at all costs and only then the remaining funds would be released. He said completion of 42 water supply and sewerage works would solve problems of residents of Sarfaraz Colony, Dadan Shah, Fakir-jo-Pir, Amani Shah Colony and Latifabad-11.
Mr Ahmed said government departments were not paying dues of Rs8.6 million. He said an amount of about Rs1 billion was outstanding against private consumers. He said sewerage water lifting vehicles had outlived their utility and needed a repair.
He claimed that Rs6.5 billion had been allocated for water supply schemes from the president's Rs10.5 billion package for the city. He said Hussainabad, Latifabad-4 and those areas which were being supplied water from the Kotri downstream would be fed through the Thadi Sarak water works.
He said at present water shortage was caused due to disconnection of the power supply whereas the annual closure of the river also affected water supply. He said there had been 25 to 30 per cent water shortage despite the fact that Wasa had postponed desilting of water lagoons.
He said manholes would also be covered as they were part of those 42 pending works which were now being executed. He said that a separate filter plant had also been approved for Pareetabad.
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