K-4 project: Shehbaz will not attend inauguration ceremony

Prime Minister of Pakistan Mian Shehbaz Sharif has postponed his visit to Karachi on Monday (tomorrow), said sources on Sunday.

The prime minister was to attend the inauguration ceremony of K-4 water project. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah was informed about it.

According to media reports, the government released an amount of Rs22,859.62 million for various water resources schemes under Annual Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) till November 2022.

As per the data of the Planning Commission, the government has specified a sum of Rs 97,559.38 million for various projects in PSDP 2022-23.

Out of total release amount, the local component stood at Rs 17,859.08 million while foreign aid component was 4,581.62 million.

The Ongoing schemes included 13 hydel and 61 water sector projects, whereas the new projects were only 13 in total. Among the ongoing water sector projects, Rs 20,000 million each was allocated for Diamer Basha Dam Project and K-4 Greater water Supply Scheme (260 MGD).

After much back and forth, the federal government gave final approval for the K-IV mega water project.

The Sindh government has given the red light to the mega project siphoning all of the additional 650million gallons of water per day (MGD) from the River Indus. Instead, it has agreed to only allocate 260 MGD of water to the K-IV project.

The settlement has led the federal government’s Central District Working Party (CDWP) to approve only one phase of the three-phased K-IV project. This will cost Rs126 billion, and the project will now be presented at ENEC.

According to an official of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB), while Karachi’s population has grown manifolds in the last 14 years of the Pakistan People’s Party’s government in Sindh, the city has failed to receive a single additional droplet of water from the Indus River.

“Other water projects are also facing delays due to which the water crisis in Karachi has intensified. “We started design work for the K-IV project as early as in 2007, but the mega project has since lingered in doldrums for various reasons,” the official told.

Speaking further he informed that the centre and the Sindh government had approved the K-IV project in the year 2015.

The plan presented by the Sindh government to the federal government on the matter acknowledged a daily supply of 650 million gallons of water, which was to be completed in three phases by the year 2023.

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The project’s Phase I consisted of 260 MGD, Phase II comprised 260 MGD and Phase III promised 130 MGD. The Sindh government started work on Phase I 260 MGD in 2016 which was to be completed in 2018.

The original cost was Rs25 billion which the federal government and the Sindh government had to pay on an equal basis. However, due to the incompetence of officials, rampant corruption, and flawed project design by the Sindh government, the construction cost of the K-IV project increased from the initial Rs25 billion to Rs150 billion, rendering the project to come to a halt.

Per federal government sources, Prime Minister Imran Khan transferred the project from the Sindh government to the federal government’s Water & Power Development Authority (WAPDA) in 2020, which rebuffed the Sindh government’s designs.

“The design under which the canal system was being built was declared invalid. On a transparent basis, WAPDA appointed a new consultancy firm, Techno Consult International, which designed the 650 MGD additional water supply project, prepared a new feasibility report and a fresh PC-I,” revealed the federal government source.

Addressing the claim, a WAPDA official speaking on conditions of anonymity said that the plan was presented by WAPDA at a CDWP meeting in Islamabad in January 2022.

Briefing the meeting, WAPDA officials maintained that the K-IV project would be installing a pipeline network to siphon water, instead of constructing a canal system.

The reason they offered was that the canal system was not profitable due to ground structure and route geography. “With the new plan, the proposed cost of the project will also come down to something around Rs200 billion.

Whereas, installation of pipes will also control water theft in the future. However, the Sindh government will have to provide a quota of 650 million gallons of water from the Indus River,” the WAPDA official said, explaining the project.