Government Called Upon to Release Rs40 Billion for Karachi’s K‑IV Water Project

KARACHI — Jamaat‑i‑Islami (JI) has sent a letter to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, highlighting the deepening water shortage in Karachi and urging the federal government to expedite the completion of the K‑IV water supply project.

In the correspondence, JI‑Karachi leader Monem Zafar cited a report presented to a National Assembly committee, noting that the first phase of the K‑IV scheme — designed to deliver 260 million gallons of water daily to Karachi — is presently slated for completion in December 2029.

He urged the Sindh administration to prioritize the K‑IV augmentation works and called on the federal government to disburse the outstanding funds within the current fiscal year to avoid further delays in completing the first phase.

He pointed out that the report has sparked widespread anxiety among Karachi’s roughly 35 million inhabitants, who are grappling with a severe water shortage.

In letter to Shehbaz, Karachi JI chief slams meagre allocation of only Rs8bn in federal budget

He called it “deeply unfortunate” that over half of the residents of a city that generates more than 50 percent of national revenue still do not have reliable access to water.

The letter states that Karachi needs no less than 1,200 million gallons of water each day, yet the city currently receives only about 550 million gallons — less than half of its requirement.

He noted that the last significant water‑supply undertaking for Karachi was the K‑III project completed under former city nazim Naimatullah Khan. Although the PC‑II for the K‑IV scheme was drafted around the same time to address future needs, the project has remained unfinished for over two decades.

He observed that the Sindh administration points to federal delays, while federal officials blame the provincial government; nevertheless, he argued that Karachi residents can see that both levels of government have faltered in delivering the project on schedule.

He added that the Sindh government has not finished the K‑IV augmentation despite World Bank support, and the federal government has allocated only a small portion of the necessary funding.

According to Monem Zafar, while the project requires Rs40 billion, the federal government set aside just Rs3.2 billion in the last budget and Rs8 billion in the current one — an indication, he said, of insufficient commitment from both federal and provincial authorities.

He emphasized that Karachi residents, who contribute the largest share of provincial and federal tax revenues, are compelled to spend billions of rupees each year on private water tankers because of the chronic shortage. He noted that, had the K‑IV project been finished on schedule, the hundreds of billions of rupees paid to tanker operators over the last twenty years could have been redirected toward education, health care, and food security.

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