Solely ‘federal-funded’ K-IV project gets a new design

KARACHI: A new design and PC-I of a long-awaited Greater Karachi Bulk Water Supply Scheme (K-IV) has been prepared and will soon be approved by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), ARY NEWS reported.

The project will now comprise of concealed water lines, contrary to the previous design that carried open canals. According to the sources privy to the details of PC-I, the project has an estimated cost of Rs126 billion and work on it would begin from March 2022.

“The concealed pipelines will be laid within two years,” they said and added the water supply project would now be solely built by the federal government through WAPDA, contrary to a previous agreement where Sindh province and Centre had to contribute 50 percent of expenses each.

The sources shared that as per the previous arrangement a 40-kilometre open canal was already built with an expenditure of Rs12 billion, however, it has now become useless after the new design is being prepared.

“The K-IV project is now limited to 260mgd which was previously 650mgd and similarly the length of the new design has also been curtailed from 127 kilometres to 108 kilometres,” they said.

Recently, the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) recommended two projects worth Rs191.2 billion to the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) for approval.

During the meeting, presided over by Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan, the Ministry of Water Resources presented a project of ‘Greater Karachi Bulk Water Supply Scheme’ K-IV 650MGD (revised) at a cost of Rs191.2 billion before the committee.

The project was presented with the reduced scope and cost for 260MGD water at Rs126 billion.