HYDERABAD: Unrest among low-grade employees and other workers of the Hyderabad Water & Sewerage Corporation (HW&SC) is heightening with each passing day as they see no signs of being paid their salaries and other dues more than sixteen months on.
They have been protesting off and on against the unprecedented delay but without any positive response from those at the helm of the affairs.
The extremely perturbed employees appeared piqued by heavy perks and extraordinary facilities being offered to the high-ups of the utility.
General Secretary of the HW&SC’s Mehran Workers Union Aslam Abbasi said that 16 months salaries of the workers, including work-charge and others, remained unpaid in the corporation but the newly-hired officers in the utility, after its upgradation, were drawing their salaries without fail.
Employees piqued by heavy perks, extraordinary facilities continuously being extended to high-ups
“The CEO and HR head are using expensive rented vehicles from corporation’s funds which is an unnecessary burden on the the utility’s kitty,” he told Dawn on Friday.
The cash-strapped utility struggles to pay salaries to its retired and present employees, the corporation’s boss is using a Fortuner vehicle rented at Rs400,000 per month — something that is allowed as a privilege to BS-20 provincial secretaries or apex court judges.
The per month rent of the CEO’s vehicle is equivalent to the salaries of 26 wage earners or work-charge employees. A work charge employee costs the HW&SC Rs15,000 per month.
Tufail Abro, a BS-18 employee of the Planning & Development Board (P&DB) department of the Sindh government, has joined the HW&SC as CEO after his selection last year.
He has taken a lien from P&DB to lead HW&SC on a four-year contract basis. The officer is on the verge of superannuation in his service.
The Sindh government upgraded the former Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) as HW&SC under The Hyderabad Water and Sewerage Corporation Act 2023 in September 2023.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has repeatedly stated that Wasa has to become a self-sustaining body. But it is something that keeps eluding corporation.
The HW&SC faces huge burden of liabilities that remained unpaid by the provincial and federal government departments. The incumbent CEO’s selection was made by the HW&SC Board in April 2025.
The CEO joined the corporation on a fixed salary of Rs600,000 with Rs66,667 annual increment, according to the April 7, 2025 notification for his appointment which was issued by the corporation’s board.
He was handed over former director finance Mohsin Jafri’s vehicle which had been allotted to Mr Jafri by the Sindh government. The vehicle was in his use. Jafri has, however, retired.
In addition to this government’s vehicle, the CEO decided to avail a Fortuner on Rs400,000 rent from a private service provider and corporation was bearing this additional burden and fuel expenses of roughly Rs300,000 every month.
“I am now planning to return the vehicle [Fortuner] and will instead take a double cabin on a rental basis as my predecessor had done. The vehicle has been obtained in order to have easy travel around the city for different visits,” the CEO told Dawn in his office on Wednesday.
Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2026
