Exorbitant amount: Water price in Sukkur to be increased almost twelvefold

New taxes to be imposed on citizens by NSUSC, SMC for garbage collection, drainage

SUKKUR: The North Sindh Urban Services Corporation (NSUSC) and Sukkur Municipal Corporation (SMC) have carved a strategy to extract more money from the citizens in the form of increased water prices and new taxes for garbage lifting and drainage.

Since its establishment in 2011, the NSUSC has failed to come up to the expectations of the citizens. NSUSC is currently charging Rs360 and Rs540 per year from its consumers, despite the fact that around 40% of the citizens living in the low-lying areas often complain of water scarcity. The utility has also been overburdened with political recruitments. Former chief minister Qaim Ali Shah called it a white elephant, while incumbent CM Murad Ali Shah has also expressed his dissatisfaction with the utility.



To conceal this alleged corruption and wastage of funds due to mismanagement, NSUSC and SMC have come up with a novel idea to impose new taxes upon the citizens who have been forced to consume contaminated water. According to the proposals prepared by NSUSC and SMC, the water price, which was earlier between Rs360 and Rs540 per year, will be increased to Rs4,596 per year. Apart from this, new taxes of Rs194 and Rs211 per month for lifting garbage and drainage will be imposed upon the citizens. Every household will have to pay Rs9,456 per year for water, drainage and lifting of garbage.

Billions of rupees were provided to NSUSC for providing potable water to the citizens as well as modernising the drainage and sanitation systems and, according to the plan, the citizens of Sukkur were to get potable water by the end of 2015.

This plan fell through as the residents still do not have access to potable water. Since its establishment in 2011, the NSUSC changed its managing directors and directors on a political basis, due to which all the development schemes are still incomplete. Meanwhile, massive corruption in the development funds is being investigated by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Sukkur. According to the NAB spokesperson, the inquiry was initiated on allegations of misappropriation of billions
of rupees.

NSUSC spokesperson Malook Baloch told The Express Tribune that the new taxes will not be imposed till the green light is given by all the stakeholders, which includes citizens and traders. “The proposal for enhancing the water tax and imposing garbage lifting and drainage tax will be finalised by the Sindh government and not by the utility itself,” he said.

SMC Mayor Arsalan Shaikh confirmed the proposals and said that in first phase, they are going to increase the water price. He said the reason for the NSUSC’s poor performance was the fact that the utility was neither owned properly nor supervised.

Shaikh, who is also a member of NSUSC board of directors, said that Rs3 billion has been allocated for water filtration plants and the citizens of Sukkur will get potable water by the end of 2018. When asked if it would be a better idea to increase the water prices once the potable water provision begins, he said that they still have to run the company and the Asian Development Bank has been pressuring them to increase service charges.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 9^th, 2017.