Amraiz Khan
Lahore
Sindh Cabinet has unanimously approved the proposal of the much awaited greater Karachi Bulk Water Supply Scheme (KBWC) K-IV Phase 1 for Karachiites.
The project will be completed at the cost of Rs. 60 billions and through project Karachites will be able to get around 900 million gallons water daily. The project was initiated about four years back with the initial cost of Rs. 25 billions.
Due to unauthorized delay in the project its cost has been escalated to more than 100 percent.
The final report on the project by technical committee along with the decisions of Cabinet meeting is submitted to minister of planning development and special initiatives and Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission in Islamabad.
The project was delayed due to the negligence of both the federal and Sindh governments, and the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB). In order to cover up their own mistakes, the Sindh government has assigned consultant Nespak with scrutinising the massive hike in the project’s cost. Sindh government has written a letter to federal government and informed about the development in project.
The letter speaks, “I am direct refer to the above subject and submit that greater Karachi bulk water supply scheme K-IV phase 1 is a national interest project and is experiencing delays because of certain project problems and design issues in order to resolve the issues government of Sindh engaged the services of M/S NESPAK to review the original design of K-IV Phase 1 project with specified TORs.
Subsequently M/s NESPAK with their International Associate M/s Deltares have carried out the said assignment and submitted draft Design Review Report to KWSB on October 8, 2019. The report was communicated to M/s OCL the design consultant of the project who has strongly contested and raised several queries on the design review report. There was a clear dispute among the 2 Consultants who are firm on their stances and findings and there was a complete deadlock on the way forward to execute the project forthwith. The Government of Sindh took a serious notice of the situation and in order to arrive at a comprehensive resolution and to move forward to implement the project technical committee was constituted on 5th of November 2019 to scrutinize the Design Review Report for Greater Karachi Water Supply Scheme and finally to government of Sindh for approval. The committee asked to M/s NESPAK to submit Draft Design Review Report after incorporating the replies to the queries raised by M/s OCL and submit the same before technical committee comprising of professional from different fields to scrutinize the report in totality to reach Conclusion and suggest way forward two government of Sindh. The Recommendations of Technical committee were submitted to Karachi water and Sewerage board meeting held on 19-05-2020. Subsequently the matter was placed before provincial cabinet which met on 17th of June 2020.
Chief Minister reiterated that early completion of the project is the priority of the government and desired that local government department must ensure early submission of revised PC 1 of the project so the same can be discussed with the Federal government. He however stressed that the revised PC 1 must ensure collection of all design related issues has pointed by NESPAK as well as include all essential missing components so that the project could be completed at the earliest to meet demand of the people of Karachi.
Cabinet unanimously approved the proposal of local government and Housing town planning department with regard to recommendation and way forward in respect of the greater Karachi bulk water supply scheme k-IV Phase 1 suggested by the governments of Sindh.
