- As many as 110 plants not working due to no release of funds
- CM directs Finance Department to release Rs336.7 mn to make ROs operational
KARACHI: The plight of people of district Tharparkar seems to have gone unnoticed as Sindh authorities’ inefficiency has led the drought-hit Thari waiting for the miracle to happen so that their basic needs of food and water could be resolved.
The poor management of the authorities has left more than 110 reverse osmosis (RO) plants to ensure potable water to people of Tharparkar, however, these RO plants remain dysfunctional following brutal negligence of officials, it was learnt on Monday.
The shocking revelation came after advisor to Sindh Chief Minister’s Advisor on Information and Archives, Law and Anti-Corruption Murtaza Wahab along with provincial ministers Imtiaz Shaikh and Sardar Shah visited the drought-hit district and apprised the chief minister about the overall situation.
While presiding over an important meeting, CM Murad Ali Shah expressed his displeasure on the closure of 110 RO plants in Thar and directed the Finance Department to release Rs336.7 million immediately and make the RO plants operational immediately.
The chief minister said that there are 600 RO plants in Thar, of which 110 have made non-functional because the contractor has not been given funds. “Why were the funds not released?” he asked the chief secretary.
Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah said that the approval of the budget is the main reason behind the delay in releasing the funds. “The provincial assembly has passed the budget at the end of last month and now the budget was available and was being disbursed among the concerned departments,” he said added “the funds for RO plants would be released to the contractor within next three days.
The chief minister directed him to release funds of Rs336.7 million to the contractor and also directed the contractor to ensure the operation of RO plants from Tuesday.
The contractor told the chief minister that due to non-availability of funds they could not pay salaries to their employees from June 2018, therefore employees working at RO plants stopped working.
At this the chief minister said the people of Thar have already suffered a lot due to drought situation and the only facility of sweet water made available to them by the government was also stopped, he regretted.
The chief minister was told that there were 2646 RO plants installed in different districts of the province, of them 2261 are operational.
It was pointed out in the meeting that around Rs4 billion excess payment was made to the contractor, at which the contractor brushed aside the impression of overpayment and said their funds were still outstanding against the government.
The contractor said that they had taken contracts of all three phases of RO plants installation and solarisation of some RO plants for Rs13.6 billion against which they had received Rs10.5 billion and still their Rs3 billion was outstanding against the government.
The chief minister directed the chief secretary to constitute a committee with representatives from Sindh Coal Authority, Public Health Engineering and Finance Department and reconcile all the expenditures being termed as disputed. “This reconciliation must be made within three days,” he said. In case the issue of excess payment is not resolved then well-reputed auditors would be hired to audit all the payments made so far.
