HYDERABAD, March 5: The Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) is working out a business plan to check missing links in water distribution because of which the agency is facing a financial burden.
Wasa sources said that despite supply of 60million gallons of filtered water daily, the agency was slapped with replies from consumers that they either did not get filtered water or it was contaminated. “Therefore, we are working out a business plan under directives of Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ebad Khan to know our own flaws, if any,” said Mohsin Jafri, the director finance of Wasa.
The agency gets poor response from its consumers, including the government departments, as far as payment of water charges is concerned.
Wasa officials said construction activities were being executed with filtered water, plantation was seen almost everywhere in the city and people watered their gardens, but they said they did not get filtered water.
Once the business plan was worked out, Wasa would be in a position to keep proof of water consumption by every consumer to convince them for payment of charges.
Like Hesco or Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), Wasa does not have any meter system to check provision of water consumption of a client.
The government departments mostly get bulk supply besides individual connections.
Every government department usually has annual budgetary allocations for its financial transactions. If a department does not have any allocation for payment of water charges, it would obviously be reluctant to pay the charges.
According to Wasa management, most of the government departments do not have allocations for water charges, including dues and regular water charges. Resultantly, arrears are accumulating against them.
The recovery percentage from the government departments and other consumers is very poor. According to the director finance, federal, provincial and district government departments are paying only seven per cent of their water charges.
He said: “Only 37,716 of the 115,667 domestic consumers pay their bills which is 32.61 per cent recovery. Of the 4,530 commercial consumers, only 1,626 pay bills which is 35.89 per cent; of the 280 district government offices, only three pay dues which is 1.07 per cent; of the 137 provincial government connections (exclusive of bulk connections) only 13 pay bills which is 9.9 per cent and of the 52 federal government connections only 13 pay the bills which is 25 per cent recovery.
“We spend Rs188 on filtration and distribution of 1,000 gallons of water while water charges are claimed as per tariff worked out in July 2010 for our bulk consumers that is Rs101 per 1,000 gallons,” he said.
A bulk consumer is the one who consumes more than 10,000 million gallons water daily. Domestic consumers get subsidised water tariff.
Under the business plan, Wasa has calculated consumption of water among domestic and public sector and commercial consumers in three talukas of the city.
It shows that out of 60 MGD (million gallons daily) water, 7.713 MGD is received by bulk consumers, including 2.48 MGD by the Cantonment Board Hyderabad (CBH), 0.670 MGD by the district administration departments; 0.952MGD by provincial departments, 0.244 MGD by federal departments, 36.112 MGD by domestic consumers and 14.894 MGD by commercial consumers.
Director-General of the Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) Ghulam Mohammad has written letters to the secretaries of the provincial government department to make water charges' payment one of their budgetary heads, according to Mr Jafri.
In these letters, daily and monthly consumption need of each department and payment against it are mentioned.
According to Wasa's calculations, 48,139 domestic consumers are given legal notice for not paying a single penny since July 2011. “These consumers owe Rs936.132 million for the period between July 2011 to date,” he said.
The subsidy to HDA was withdrawn in early 90s. Since then the authority and Wasa strive hard to ensure regular payment of salaries to their employees.
Ghulam Mohammad said overhead expenses had increase manifold. “Electricity tariff has increased very fast over the years. Then there are expenses on petroleum, oil and lubricants as well which put a heavy burden on the agency,” he added.
The overall operation and maintenance cost of the system is also increasing and the volume of accumulating arrears is increasing rapidly, he said.
If the position remained the same, the upkeep of the system would become impossible with the passage of time, he said.