Reform committee to be set up in KW&SB

City Nazim and Chairman Water and Sewerage Board (KW&SB), Syed Mustafa Kamal has decided to form a high level reform committee in KW&SB which will comprise public representatives, NGOs, experts, urban planners and other stakeholders.
The decision to this effect was made in a high level meeting held on late Saturday night with the City Nazim in chair, a statement said here on Sunday.
It said the committee besides working on lines to develop the utility, will, in accordance with the master plan of the city, determine water requirements of the metropolis in both short run - five years - and long run that is up to 2026 when the city's population will be 37 million. Then, on the basis of these requirements, it will prepare necessary plans and suggestions.
It will finalise guidelines for KW&SB so that the board could embark on work from now onwards to cater to the future water requirements of the city.
DCO, Karachi, Fazlur Rehman, Managing Director KW&SB, Brigadier Iftikhar Haider, chief engineers and other officials attended the meeting.
The City Nazim observed that Karachi's population is growing at a rapid pace and it is imperative for KW&SB to seriously look for new water resources and ways to meet the requirement of the people in future.
"The board should have targets for making additions annually to the total water supply capacity of the utility," he suggested.
He said without such targets the utility will not be able to meet the challenge successfully.
He noticed that there is a shortage of technical staff in the board particularly sub-engineers.
He said there should be two sub-engineers of KW&SB at union council level and directed for preparing a detailed report showing total requirement of technical staff.
Talking about increasing the revenue of the board, Mustafa Kamal directed to prepare another report about the details of arrears outstanding against different organisations which used water but failed to clear the dues so that the matter could be taken up at a higher level.
He said the policy of adhocism be abolished and board should know in advance that how much increase could be witnessed in water demand of the city during the next two years.
The City Nazim said that KW&SB should make all the preparations in advance to meet the additional water demand in 2008.