KARACHI, Jan 27: The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board is conducting a survey to update its record of consumers, hoping that the exercise would help increase its revenue.

The board, according to a report, is also considering outsourcing its billing and collection system.

The board has also made the procedure of giving connections to new consumers simpler, besides encouraging provision of water to those residential, commercial and industrial consumers who used it in bulk quantities.

The board, however, is collecting less revenue instead of more as was manifested by the amount it had collected during six months of the financial year 2004-05 - Rs904.955 million against Rs3661.66 million the board was anticipating to collect by the end of the financial year.

According to a report, a recovery of Rs1,892.493 against an estimate of Rs2718.127 million (70 per cent) was made in the year 2001-02 while Rs1,965.730 million against a target of Rs2,873.711 million (68 per cent) were recovered during 2002-03.

In the year 2003-04, Rs2,146.841 million against a target of Rs2,959.119 million (73 per cent) were recovered. The highest recovery on water account - Rs39.59 million -- was made from Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town from where the board also collected Rs12.76 million on account of sewerage, the report said.

Gulshan Town is followed by Saddar Town where collection on account of water was Rs35.05 million against Rs1,459.29 million while Rs8.22 million were collected against Rs308.94 million on account of sewerage.

The lowest recovery was made in Landhi Town where recovery on account of water was Rs0.61 million against Rs231.91 million while for sewerage the recovery was Rs0.23 million against Rs74.43 million.