Tanker mafia: KWSB selling water through tankers, observes SC bench

Supreme Court bench demands explanation for existence of water hydrants

KARACHI:

The Supreme Court (SC) has ordered the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board’s managing director Hashim Raza Zaidi to personally appear with complete records relating to the regulation and monitoring of water hydrants and action initiated against those being operated illegally in the metropolis.

A three member bench, headed by Justice Amir Hani Muslim, was hearing various human rights applications against the operation of illegal water hydrants in Karachi at the SC’s Karachi Registry.

At the outset, the bench was informed by chief engineer Ghulam Haider that the KWSB MD Hashim Raza Zaidi was busy before the SC in Islamabad as he also held the charge of the secretary of the provincial ombudsman.



The judges ordered the officer to ensure that MD Zaidi appeared in the court within half hour. Haider, assured, however, that the deputy managing director, Iftikhar Ahmed, would appear in the court shortly. The judges warned that if the DMD Ahmed would not appear himself, the court would order his arrest to procure his appearance. Ahmed later appeared.

During the tea break, the court’s office informed the bench that there was no specific direction for Zaidi to personally appear in the case being heard today at the SC’s principal seat in Islamabad. This irked the bench, which took serious notice of the MD’s absence despite a specific order for his personal appearance. They summoned the MD on Thursday (today) with a written explanation as to why he went to Islamabad where he was not specifically required to personally appear. They warned to examine the proposed explanation and pass an appropriate order.

The bench members also recorded their displeasure over the management of the water hydrants by the water board. The officer incharge of hydrants of Karachi, Nisar Magsi, informed the court that there were 24 legal hydrants in the city, of which 21 were operational and the remaining three were dysfunctional.

When the judges inquired about the water board’s policy under which these hydrants were regulated, the officer said there was a standard operating procedure (SOP), dated August 25, 2009.

Magsi said the water was supplied to the slums where the infrastructure did not exist, adding that the commodity was also provided for funerals and weddings. At this, Justice Muslim remarked that the authorities had failed to even provide Kafan to bury the over 1,300 bodies of the victims of heatstroke during the heat wave in Karachi last month.

The judges then asked whether the tankers which filled water from these legal hydrants provided water on the water board’s instructions or was it the tanker owners who controlled the supply of water in Karachi. Magsi could not, however, offer any plausible explanation and placed on record a copy of the contract between the water board and the contractors.

The judges, who went through the terms of the contract, remarked that ‘prima facie’ (contract) did not reflect that such contracts were serving the residents of Karachi. “In fact, the water board appears to have been selling the water through the contractors (tanker owners) and they do not have any scheme to serve the interests of the residents of Karachi,” remarked the head of the bench, Justice Amir Hani Muslim. “The purpose for creating hydrants was different than the purpose for which the supply of water is being made in Karachi city,” he added.

Under these circumstances, the bench directed Magsi to provide the documentation on the basis of which he was regulating the supply of water through tankers. He was also directed to justify the increasing number of tankers in the recent past, when there was a hue and cry for the shortage of water in different areas of the city.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 30^th, 2015.