Financial demand: KWSB wants 50% share in katchi abadi revenue
Nine million people in slums are supplied water, but only one per cent pay their bills.
KARACHI:
The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) has demanded a 50 per cent share in the revenue collected from katachi abadis by different state agencies on account of the water it supplies to the unplanned settlements.
The water board caters to nine million people living in katchi abadis spread over 30,000 acres in Karachi, but these areas generate less than one per cent of its revenue, which is why it is unable to improve its infrastructure, it said in a statement issued on Monday.
The KWSB asked the Sindh Katachi Abadi Authority and the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) to pass on half of the revenue collected from the settlements to the water board.
Parliamentarians have been spending on water and sewerage schemes in these slums from their own discretionary funds, but the residents have defaulted on billions of rupees as they do not pay their bills, Misbahuddin Farid, the managing director of the KWSB, has said to the local bodies secretary. Despite this, the KWSB is providing them with water and sewerage services, but it is facing immense problems due to the continued growth in the slums.
There are 820 katchi abadis in Karachi, out of which 540 have been regularised by the Sindh Katchi Abadi Authority, while 280 fall under the KMC jurisdictions. In recent days, the water board has renewed its demand to charge a commercial tariff for water, which is hugely subsidised in the country. “People cannot be made to conserve water until they realise its actual cost,” Farid says.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 18th, 2012.
The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) has demanded a 50 per cent share in the revenue collected from katachi abadis by different state agencies on account of the water it supplies to the unplanned settlements.
The water board caters to nine million people living in katchi abadis spread over 30,000 acres in Karachi, but these areas generate less than one per cent of its revenue, which is why it is unable to improve its infrastructure, it said in a statement issued on Monday.
The KWSB asked the Sindh Katachi Abadi Authority and the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) to pass on half of the revenue collected from the settlements to the water board.
Parliamentarians have been spending on water and sewerage schemes in these slums from their own discretionary funds, but the residents have defaulted on billions of rupees as they do not pay their bills, Misbahuddin Farid, the managing director of the KWSB, has said to the local bodies secretary. Despite this, the KWSB is providing them with water and sewerage services, but it is facing immense problems due to the continued growth in the slums.
There are 820 katchi abadis in Karachi, out of which 540 have been regularised by the Sindh Katchi Abadi Authority, while 280 fall under the KMC jurisdictions. In recent days, the water board has renewed its demand to charge a commercial tariff for water, which is hugely subsidised in the country. “People cannot be made to conserve water until they realise its actual cost,” Farid says.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 18th, 2012.