CM, international consortium officials discuss Karachi's water, transport issues

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in order to address burning issues of water and transport of the city held two important meetings with AWDICO, a consortium of British and French companies, and discussed the proposal of installation of water desalination plant and launching electric buses on the different BRTS routes in the city.

The meeting was attended by Minister Local Government Syed Nasir Shah, PSCM Sajid Jamal Abro, MD Water Board Asadullah Khan, special secretary Local Government and other concerned people of Sindh and the AWDICO company was represented by Annmarie Carberry, Jason Wright, Ashak Toufen, Allian Gottesman and others.

The chief minister said that he was struggling to resolve water issue of the city. "The most urgent solution lies in desalination of the sea water and provide to the city," he said.

The AWDICO company presented an offshore water desalination (OWD). They said that they have studies water requirement of the city. They said that 265 MGD water could be supplied through desalination plant.

They said that the AWDICO would provide three barges, each with 100,000m3/day production capacity and total would come to 300,000m3 per day. In the second phase, the company would deliver another fleet of three barges with the same capacity. In third phase would have a capacity of 400,000 but each one barge would have 135,000m3 per/day production capacity. They assured that each phase would be completed within 18 months from signing of the contract date.

The company said that AWDIC would sign a 25-year agreement with the provincial government. The company would operate on Build Own and Operate all the destination barges basis.

The chief minister directed Minister Local Government and Public Private Partnership Unit to hold more meeting with AWDICO to work out water rate, other requirements etc so that necessary decision could be taken in time.

The chief minister also said that the provincial government would not be able to provide them electricity; therefore they would have to install their own solar power plant of at least 50MW. The meeting with the company and the provincial government would start from Saturday and would continue for at least next six days.

Transport: The Energy Global Venture (EGV) offered to make Karachi the leader in green public transport solutions. They offered to invest in modern high tech electric fleet of buses to service public transport.

The company offered to provide 24-hour public transport solution to transform city transport. They said that they would start its operation by investing in 1000 electric buses which would run on the main roads and on different routes of BRT. The EGN assured that they would adopt more routes of BRT Lines as per development plan that needed to be agreed between the Sindh government and the company.

To a query of the chief minister, they said that 1,000 buses operations would be started within 12 months when agreement was signed and another 10,000 more electric buses would be added in the fleet within next five years. The target is to provide transport for up to 400,000 passengers per day after first year and over two million people per day which would be achieved in five years.

The chief minister said that the construction of Abdul Sattar Edhi Line project was almost at its final stage. He asked them to visit the corridor and inspect its infrastructure. "If the infrastructure is good enough to ply electric buses I will invite you," he told the EGN.

Shah said that he would give them a separate land for installation of 100MW solar power plant for charging of electric buses. "We can work together if EGN experts hold separate meetings with the World Bank and the Asian Bank, who are our partners, so that ongoing development of the infrastructure of the BRT can be made accordingly, if agreed," he said.

The chief minister directed transport department, Sindh Investment Department and P&D chairperson to have meeting with the EGN people and firm up their recommendations and submit him a report within next 15 days.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019