HYDERABAD, Oct 16: The District Nazim of Hyderabad, Kanwar Naveed Jamil, who is also the chairman of governing body of HDA, has said that rehabilitation and restoration of HDA’s credibility was a challenging task for its governing body to ensure efficient delivery of services to the people of Hyderabad.

He observed this while presiding over the first meeting of governing body of HDA at the district nazim secretariat here the other day after its revival by the government of Sindh.

He said that though management of HDA was being criticised due to its poor performance, and some officers might be responsible for negligence, but the main reason behind the problem was paucity of funds which has rendered the whole organisation ineffective.

He said that the organisation could not even pay salaries to its employees.

He said that neither water rates were increased since 1994 nor new avenues of earnings have been tapped by HDA.

Besides, he said, poor recovery of taxes and suspension of subsidy by the Sindh government has created difficulties for the management to perform its functions properly.

He said that due to acute shortage of funds, district government has diverted its own funds to restart the abandoned development works and pay salary to the staff of HDA.

He said that in such a situation, restructuring of financial management of HDA has become essential with a view to curtailing unnecessary expenditure and opening new avenues of earnings.

He said that district government was entrusted to serve the people of Hyderabad but 50 per cent problems of the people pertain to HDA as such “we are bound to reactivate HAD”.

He said that efficient utilization of available funds for revitalisation of HDA would ultimately pave the way for efficient deliveries to the people.

He said that it was a challenging task for the governing body which must succeed in streamlining the working of the organisation at any cost.

He said that poor drainage and water supply system and broken roads were the problems of the past for which Hyderabad Development Package of Rs10 billion was announced by the federal government with the condition of 50 per cent grant by the government of Sindh.

He said last year Sindh government provided Rs670 million and has earmarked Rs1,000 million during current budget for the implementation of the package but no amount has been received from federal government till date.

He said that against an amount of Rs1,000 million earmarked by the provincial government, tenders of different development schemes at a total cost of Rs1,600 million have been floated.

He said that keeping in view the untenable situation in Qasimabad, work for installation of Qasimabad pumping station has been started at an estimated cost of Rs80 million from the component of provincial government funds to avoid any delay in execution of this project.

He said that after completion of this project, drainage capacity of Qasimabad would be increased six times by next year.

He said that Greater Hyderabad Sewerage Project phase-I, which was started in 1987, has not been completed till date due to lack of funds.

He said that after assuming the charge of district nazim, he provided Rs83 million from the district government budged to restart the pending works.

Similarly, the district government received another amount of Rs70 million from the government of Sindh for this project, he said.

Expressing concern over non-recovery of HDA’s outstanding dues against federal and provincial governments and general consumers, the district nazim said that some sort of mechanism has to be evolved by the governing body for the sustainability of HDA.

He said that he was planning to hold a joint meeting of HDA, governing body, district and provincial governments to take decision with mutual understanding and cooperation.

The Director-General HDA, Tahir Ahmed, who is also the secretary of the governing body, while briefing the forum, said that HDA was facing acute shortage of funds with a Rs40 million monthly deficit and was not even able to meet its day to day expenses.

He said that federal and provincial governments and other private institutions were not paying their water charges as such an amount of Rs657.385 million was outstanding against federal government and Rs196.512 million against provincial government departments, besides an amount of Rs625.733 million was outstanding against general consumers.

He said that minimum amount of Rs10 million per month was required only for maintenance purpose. He informed that due to the support of district government Hyderabad, the management of HDA enhanced recovery by 100 percent but after the recent rainfall recovery ratio was continuously declining, thus it has added to the problems of the organisation.

The DG HDA also briefed the forum about completed and on-going development works by HDA and was optimistic that after completion of these works the situation would greatly improve.

MPAs Aslam Pervez and Ms Nuzhat Pathan, taluka nazim of Latifabad, Sabir Hussain Kaimkhani, taluka nazim of Hyderabad city, Javed Jabbar, DCO Mohammad Hussain Syed, chief engineer public health engineering, Mohammad Siddique and other concerned officers attended the meeting.