CBC hopeful about completion of desalination plant in two years

As the ‘Expression of Interests’ has been formally invited from the interested national and foreign firms, the much-awaited desalination plant on the shoreline of Karachi is likely to be built in two years

Officials of the Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC) said this as they addressed a news conference at the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday. The desalination plant will help overcome acute water shortage in areas managed by the CBC and Defence Housing Authority (DHA), they said.

CBC Vice President (VP) Aziz Suharwardy said the proposed seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant would be built on in DHA Phase-VIII and it would have the capacity to produce desalinated water up to five million gallons daily. He was accompanied by six other elected councillors of the area. He thanked the Pakistan Army and Karachi corps commander for allocating land on the shoreline of DHA Phase-VIII for executing the project.

He said the desalination plant would be established on a build-operator-transfer basis and the agreement that would be signed with the selected firm would also envisage appointing an international consultant for the execution of the project on modern lines.

He said a joint committee of the CBC and DHA established by the Corps Headquarters in December last year had been jointly looking after the affairs related to the establishment of the desalination plant. The joint committee is comprised of Suharwardy, CBC cantonment executive officer and station commander Karachi.

The CBC VP said once the project would be completed, the cantonment board would sign an agreement to be the bulk purchaser of the desalinated water that would be supplied to the residents of DHA.

He said residents of DHA Phase-VIII would be supplied desalinated water on a priority basis after the completion of the project and a water metering system would also be initiated once water was provided to housing units there through proper water lines.

He added that the water metering system would later be introduced in the rest of the DHA area. The total water requirement of the CBC and DHA at present stood at 15 million gallons per day (MGD) and since the last eight months, the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board had been supplying 3.5 to 5 MGD to the area, causing an acute shortage of potable water there, the CBC VP said. He stated that the cost of desalinated water for the DHA residents would be affordable compared to their frequent purchase of water tankers.