Staff Reporter
A Chinese company has shown interest in completing K-IV, Karachi’s fourth bulk water supply canal—a project started eighteen years ago that has cost up to Rs14 billion so far and is nowhere near done.
China Gezhouba Group’s Pakistan executive general manager Shi Yu has written to the Sindh government offering help with the K-IV. “[We] noticed that … things are not going smoothly because the design is not feasible,” he wrote. They expressed interest in “participating” by providing design and construction support. The Chinese company is referring to a development in K-IV that has put considerable pressure on the Sindh government as it tries to complete the project, a 121km canal from Kinjhar lake. When this government took over it had the design of K-IV checked by an independent engineering company.
That company produced a damning report that there were serious design flaws. The Chinese letter was sent to the CM’s secretariat on Dec 25, 2018. It was sent by January 17 to the secretary of the local government department for “necessary action”.
This company said it has worked on hydro power, renewable energy, road and petrochemical projects such as the $1.9 billion Suki Kinari Hydropower Project, $3.3 billion hydropower project and $1.9 billion Mohmand dam.
Local Government Secretary Roshan Ali Shah has convened a meeting on January 27 to discuss K-IV and it is likely that the Chinese offer may be taken up.
Work on the Greater Karachi Water Supply Scheme has been stopped for long. The provincial government had missed several deadlines it had given for completion of the project and still no one knew that when the work on the much-needed project resume again.
Last year, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah told reporters accompanying him in an hours-long visit to the city that a commission had been constituted to make necessary amendments in the route of the K-IV project so that its stopped work could be resumed.
He was asked to comment over objections raised by Nespak reportedly declaring the project in its present form unfeasible.
Without naming the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the CM said that the route of K-IV project was approved by the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board when it was being governed by those who were now running the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation.
It is also to note that last year the fate of the project was in jeopardy after Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah confirmed that the state-owned engineering corporation Nespak had raised objections over the design, and Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal apprehended that the provincial government is going to abandon the project half way.
