KARACHI — The completion of the Greater Karachi Bulk Water Supply Scheme, the federal mega-project known as K-IV, is now slipping toward early 2029, several years beyond the government’s stated target, as senior water managers concede the December 2026 deadline can no longer realistically be met.
Senior officials of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC) say the federal government’s goal of completing the scheme by December 2026 “appears increasingly difficult to achieve,” with the project unlikely to become operational before early 2029, according to Energy Update. A KWSC official acknowledged that work on the city’s internal distribution corridors “has not yet commenced.”
The assessment marks a sharp departure from the optimism voiced months earlier. In November 2025, the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) reported that overall physical progress on K-IV had reached 64 per cent, with Rs86 billion already spent, and insisted it remained “committed to completing the K-IV during 2026 provided the funds are made available accordingly,” per WAPDA. The authority has divided the scheme into eight contract packages on a fast-track basis.
K-IV is designed to draw water from Keenjhar Lake in Thatta. Its under-construction Phase-I is intended to supply 260 million gallons per day (MGD) to Karachi, with the full project envisaged to deliver 650 MGD, as detailed by WAPDA. That addition would still fall short of demand: Karachi currently requires roughly 1.2 billion gallons a day against an existing supply of about 650 million gallons, leaving a projected shortfall of 300 to 400 MGD even after K-IV is finished, Energy Update reported.
Funding remains the central constraint. The federal government allocated only Rs3.2 billion to K-IV in the 2025-26 budget against the Rs40 billion WAPDA had sought — a shortfall of roughly 92 per cent, Dawn reported. “Over 63 per cent of the work is already done, and with proper funding, we were confident of wrapping it up within a year,” a senior project official told Dawn, while former planning minister Asad Umar argued the meagre allocation “suggests the government isn’t serious about building the project.”
The project’s cost has ballooned over its long gestation. First conceived more than two decades ago and revived in 2014 at an estimated Rs25 billion, K-IV now carries a price tag of about Rs224 billion — roughly Rs124 billion for transmission, pumping and filtration works and a further Rs80 billion for distribution corridors, according to Energy Update. Those three corridors — R-1, R-2 and R-3 — span 26, 40 and 28 kilometres respectively, or about 94 kilometres combined, yet work on them is still to begin.
Federal officials maintain the city is a priority. “Karachi is the economic engine of Pakistan and meeting its essential needs is a priority of the federal government,” Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said, as reported by Dawn, which noted a new pumping station at Dhabeji was expected to begin operations.
For now, the gap between official deadlines and ground realities continues to widen, leaving millions of Karachi residents waiting on a scheme that has already outlasted multiple completion dates.
