Karachi (PR) As many as 13 licenses have been issued so far for the extraction of subsoil water in Karachi under the revised rules adopted by the Sindh government for the purpose.

Sindh Local Government Minister, Saeed Ghani disclosed this on Monday while speaking in the Sindh Assembly to respond to call attention notices submitted by the concerned legislators.

One of the call attention notices pertained to shortage of potable water in Korangi due to extraction of the phenomenal subsoil water by the nearby industries.

The Local Government Minister told the house that the Sindh government, for the first time, had adopted a law in 2018 to manage the system of subsoil water extraction in Karachi.

Initially, 34 licenses were issued for subsoil water extraction under the 2018 law as 20 of them were later rescinded due to violation of the rules.

Ghani informed the legislators that the house adopted a revised law for the purpose in 2024.

He said the new law defined five categories for the grant of licenses as the new law didn’t cover domestic consumers.

All the previous licenses issued under the 2018 law have been canceled, he said.

The Local Government Minister said the 13 licenses had so far been issued under the revised 2024 law while cases of the rest of the applicants were being processed.

The Karachi Water & Sewerage Corporation will pay 25 percent of the license fee to Karachi Metropolitan Corporation as the groundwater recharge fee.

Answering to another call attention notice, the Local Government Minister told the house that the Sindh government had been requested to provide 2,000 acres of land to resettle the affected people of Lines Area Resettlement Project.

He told the lawmakers that the number of affected persons had increased from 20,000 to 25,000. Ghani said that there had been 17,000 claimants in 1980.

He said that earlier 100 acres of land had been allocated in Korangi for the purpose, but it had been illegally occupied.

Ghani said the authorities concerned had been searching for the land to resettle the affected persons as this process would be completed transparently.