Privatisation of KWSB

Urban water and sanitation management has been experiencing a change throughout the world cities Improvement in service delivery mechanisms, efficiency, cost efficiency and acceptance to a large cross-sections of the society are some of the reasons.

Karachi’s water sector has also experienced several inputs in relation to this fact. Under the influence of the World Bank, a private sector participation strategy is being formed to improve the situation. The government machinery has been all out to advocate and support privatisation from different forums. The ministers in their speeches to the Sindh Assembly repeatedly expressed their resolve to implement the Private Sector Participation (PSP) as a top priority task.

This book addresses the dynamics of the privatisation of water and sanitation services in Karachi. It traces down the background aspects and key factors that led to the formation of the PSP strategy for KWSB. It documents and analyses the response of all the major stakeholders that are directly or indirectly associated with the water supply service in Karachi. This response was based on the formal structured interviews which were conducted from October 1998 to July 1999. These interviews were recorded, transcribed and translated, and the gist of the feedback has been incorporated in the book. A forum dialogue of the actors was also held in August 1999, the summary of which has been incorporated here. The dynamics of the process of privatisation , concept, procedure and the expected and anticipated social and economic impacts have been analysed . At the end conclusions and recommendations based on the analysis have been presented.