Karachi’s JI Chief Urges PM Shehbaz to Release Rs40 Billion for K-IV Water Project
The Jamaat-i-Islami has written directly to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, raising alarm over Karachi’s deepening water crisis and calling on the federal government to prioritise the completion of the long-delayed K-IV water supply project, one of the city’s most critical pieces of infrastructure.
In the letter, JI-Karachi chief Monem Zafar referenced findings presented before a National Assembly committee, which revealed that the K-IV project’s first phase, meant to deliver 260 million gallons of water daily to Karachi, is now not expected to be completed until December 2029. For a city that’s been waiting on this project for over two decades, that timeline represents yet another significant setback.
A City Waiting Two Decades for Relief
Zafar’s letter calls on the Sindh government to prioritise completion of the K-IV augmentation component, while simultaneously urging the federal government to release all remaining funds needed for the project within the current fiscal year, so that at least the first phase can move forward without further delay.
He noted that the National Assembly committee’s findings have caused considerable concern among Karachi’s residents, a city of roughly 35 million people currently grappling with an acute and worsening water shortage. Zafar described it as deeply troubling that more than half the population of a city that contributes over 50 percent of the country’s total revenue still lacks access to adequate water supply.
The Scale of the Shortfall
According to the letter, Karachi’s actual water requirement stands at around 1,200 million gallons per day. What the city currently receives, however, is closer to 550 million gallons daily, less than half of what’s actually needed to meet demand. That gap has been a persistent and worsening problem for residents across the city, forcing many households and businesses to rely on alternative, often costly, sources of water just to get by.
A Project Decades in the Making
Zafar’s letter traces the roots of the current crisis back to the completion of the K-III project during the tenure of former city nazim Naimatullah Khan. He noted that even though the PC-II planning document for K-IV, meant to address Karachi’s future water needs, was prepared around that same period, the project itself remains unfinished more than 21 years later.
According to Zafar, the delay has become something of a blame game between the two levels of government, with the Sindh government pointing to federal delays, while parties within the federal government hold the provincial administration responsible. He argued, however, that Karachi’s residents can plainly see that neither government has managed to deliver the project on time, regardless of who bears more responsibility.
He further noted that the Sindh government failed to complete the K-IV augmentation component even with World Bank assistance in place, while the federal government, for its part, has allocated only a fraction of what the project actually requires.
Funding Falls Well Short of What’s Needed
The numbers Zafar cites paint a fairly stark picture of the funding gap. Against a stated requirement of Rs40 billion, the federal government allocated just Rs3.2 billion for the project in the previous budget cycle. The current budget fared somewhat better but still falls far short, earmarking only Rs8 billion, a level of funding Zafar described as reflecting a lack of seriousness from both the federal and provincial governments in addressing the issue.
The Human and Economic Cost
Beyond the funding shortfall itself, Zafar’s letter highlights the broader financial burden this delay has placed on ordinary Karachi residents. Despite contributing the largest share of both provincial and federal tax revenue, the city’s residents have been forced to spend billions of rupees annually on private water tankers just to meet their basic needs, a direct consequence of the chronic supply shortage.
Zafar argued that had the K-IV project been completed on schedule, the hundreds of billions of rupees that have gone into the private tanker business over the past two decades could instead have been redirected by citizens toward education, healthcare, and food, spending that would have had a far more meaningful and lasting impact on household welfare across the city.
Why K-IV Matters So Much
The K-IV project has long been positioned as the primary long-term solution to Karachi’s water crisis, designed to eventually supply up to 650 million gallons of water daily to the city once fully completed across its three planned phases. For a megacity of Karachi’s size and economic importance, the project’s repeated delays have taken on an outsized significance, symbolising broader frustrations over infrastructure development keeping pace with the city’s needs.
What Happens Next
For now, the ball appears to sit with both the federal and provincial governments to determine how quickly they can bridge the funding gap and move the project’s first phase toward completion. Whether Zafar’s appeal to the prime minister translates into any accelerated funding release or a revised completion timeline remains to be seen, but the letter adds fresh pressure on policymakers at a moment when Karachi’s water shortage continues to weigh heavily on daily life for millions of residents across the city.
