KARACHI: Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani has said that the government is taking every measure to make the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board not only a self-sufficient and revenue-generating institution, but also to ensure that the board comes up to the expectations of the people.

He said that the KWSB governing body by an earlier decision had given approval to increase its tariff by nine per cent, which would be implemented in accordance with the law from July 1, 2019.

The minister, who was speaking to media after attending a meeting of the Select Committee at the Sindh Assembly, in reply to a question, said: “We have not exempted industrial zones from increase in water tariff.”

Efforts on to make KWSB self-sufficient, says Saeed Ghani

He said if the nine per cent increase in the water tariff was calculated, it would turn out to be only Rs20 to Rs22 per month increase, which was not even a rupee per day.

Replying to a question asked by journalists, Mr Ghani said that one of the members of the Karachi chamber had put up the point of view of the industrial area in yesterday’s meeting of the governing board of the KWSB and the meeting participants had decided in principle to enforce the decision of increasing the water tariff by nine per cent from July 1, 2019 while as far as its implementation on industrial areas was concerned, the decision had been left with the water board, which would present its report in this regard in the next meeting of the governing body.

Replying to another question, the local government minister said that he had not yet received any notice for contempt of court, but learnt about it from the media only.

“We stand by our commitment of implementing decisions of the court whether we like it or not.”

He said if he would get contempt of court notice from Karachi Registry of the Supreme Court, he would certainly appear before the court to present his point of view.

He said he was still of the view that carrying out the orders to demolish 500 buildings was against ground realities, as it would result in human tragedy, but if he would be compelled to carry out orders of the court, being a minister he would resign rather than implementing the court order. “I don’t see this comment falling in the purview of contempt of court,” he added.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2019