Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif inaugurated the K-IV water project in Karachi on Thursday and said that he would pursue it vigorously.

The inauguration ceremony took place in Chief Minister House Karachi and was also attended by Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, CM Murad Ali Shah and Governor Kamran Tessori.

“The K-IV project is the most important for me and it will be given preference in the next budget,” Shehbaz said at the event.

Shehbaz also said that the chaos in the last one year had prevented the country from progressing and the project had been put in ‘cold storage’.

“It is a travesty that water is politicised in the city that pays the most tax in the country,” Shehbaz said.

He said that completing the project would be a challenge but the government would make sure to give it preference in the budget.

Shehbaz also added that the parliament and the coalition government had shown exemplary unity in the current political crisis to confront a ‘conspiracy’ hatched abroad. He said that the events of May 9 had been a ‘dark day’ for Pakistan.

Speaking at the event, Bilawal Bhutto said that even his own house was getting water supplied by a tanker. He added that the city needed ‘Shehbaz Speed’ to overcome its problems.

CM Murad Ali Shah said that completion of the K-IV project would be huge relief for the city and the Sindh government would take on additional responsibility to complete it.

’Despite the economic situation of the country, the k-IV project deserves special funds,“ Murad said. He added that there was a chance that the cost of the project could increase due to delays.

Previous inauguration

The project was conceived in Mustafa Kamal’s tenure as Mayor. It envisioned 40 million gallons of water being brought to the city daily via the Super High Way route. kamal even got President Pervez Musharraf to inaugurate the project but work stalled.

In 2015, then PM Nawaz Sharif once again announced that he would begin the project along with the Green Line Bus service. Even a new firm was hired for the feasibility study.

The project was inaugurated by Sindh’s chief minister during Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s tenure with the hope that water supply could begin in 2019, but water shortage got in the way of things again.

The motor installed in the project’s pumping station in Karachi was swept away in the torrential rains of 2020. Then PM Imran Khan once again went to Karachi and inaugurated the project.

The cost of the project is now estimated to have reached Rs160 billion.