SAHIWAL: Consumers are raising objections over the recently issued civic amenities bills by the Sahiwal Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) and only half of the consumers paid the bills issued by the agency.

For the month of March, around 30,000 out of the total 54,300 consumers have received monthly bills for civic amenities, including water supply, sewerage, and drainage. Of these, 54,300 consumers, 47,000 are domestic, 6,000 commercial and 1,300 industrial. So far, about 45-50 percent have deposited their bills.

Meanwhile, the actual number of consumers is still in question as various surveys present different numbers of total consumers in the district.

Wasa Director Finance Zohaib Kharal told Dawn that a third-party survey conducted by ARC Private Limited revealed that there were a total of 62,768 consumers in the jurisdiction of the Sahiwal Metropolitan Corporation (MC) , including 8,397 commercial and 54,371 domestic users, with no industrial connection in the city.

Contradictory consumer data adding to the confusion; Wasa MD says ratio of bill-paying consumers gradually increasing

On the other hand, Wasa Managing Director Tanveer Qasir said that their internal survey had confirmed that there were a total of 54,300 consumers, including 47,000 domestic, 6,000 commercial and 1,300 industrial users. The MD said that the 30,000 bills that had been issued were based on their own internal survey numbers.

Wasa had obtained consumer data from two sources: the MC and the Punjab Intermediary Citizen Improvement and Investment Programme (PICIIP), funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

When contacted, PICIIP City Head Asjad Khan claimed that under the ADB project, PICIIP had provided 32,500 clean drinking water connections, but Wasa was in the process of confirming this data. This was confirmed by Wasa Finance Director Zohaib Kharal, who said that the agency’s verification process was underway and till date they had confirmed 14,000 connections and they were in the process of verifying the rest.

According to official sources, of the 30,000 bills issued so far, only 15,000 had been paid, while the remaining consumers had raised objections to the billing procedure and the submission process. Sources added that in the first month, 100-200 consumers visited Wasa offices daily to rectify their bills.

They said that many consumers claimed that they had disconnected their water connections but failed to produce the mandatory disconnection receipts. While others argued that new sewerage lines had not been installed in their areas and questioned why they were being billed, sources claimed.

The Wasa MD stated that the ratio of bill paying consumers had been gradually increasing and expressed hope that most consumers would soon begin paying their bills.

He said that although the PICIIP project was going to end next month, it had yet to hand over the data of the water users to Wasa. He said that the difference in the total number of consumers would be rectified soon.

Many consumers also noted that the bills were not based on actual water usage since no household in Sahiwal was equipped with a water meter.

The MD confirmed this fact, explaining that bills were calculated according to the size of the residential plot rather than water consumption checked through a water meter. He added that the Punjab Assembly had approved the tariff structure on a plot-size basis, and Wasa issued bills in line with this framework.

Meanwhile, sources told Dawn that Wasa had floated a tender for the purchase and installation of approximately 4,000 water meters, but these would initially be limited to households in Farid Town, Scheme No 2, and Scheme No 3.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2026