Amin Rajput, Acting Managing Director of SSGC, broke ground for the rehabilitation of the Company’s 1,000 km distribution network in North Nazimabad and North Karachi. The need to rehabilitate this 4 decades old distribution network that serves many North Nazimabad and North Karachi households rose since, over the years, the existing network had become old and corroded, leading to heavy leakages. Due to the high leakage rate, the Company was forced to keep the system pressures on the lower side, leading to persistent low-pressure complaints from residents. The existing network is not isolated, which explains why gas losses cannot be metered/measured.
The Projects and Construction Department of the Company’s Technical Services Division will execute the rehabilitation activity in twelve segments or lots. A groundbreaking ceremony was attended by SSGC’s senior management, including Saeed Rizvi, DMD (Operations), Syed Asghar Shah (SGM HR and MS), Ghulam Moeen Butt, ASGM (Technical Services), Fasihuddin Fawad, ASGM (Customer Services), Adnan Rehman, ASGM (Distribution SBU-LS Central) and Madni Siddiqui, ASGM (HSEQA) and many other departmental heads.
The area’s rehabilitation has been planned to segregate the network into 18 zones with isolated TBSs or Town Border Stations (10 existing and eight proposed TBSs). Consequently, sales/purchases will be reconciled for each zone. All leaky/corroded steel pipe networks would be replaced with HDPE 100 pipe, and all losses due to the leakage would be eliminated. In addition, an under-sized network would be upgraded in all respects, and smooth supply would be possible to all the customers of this area. The arrangement will help better control the area’s operational pressure as per requirement with the creation of newly segregated small pockets. The project will be commissioned in around ten months.
While addressing the gathering, Amin Rajput, AMD appreciated all departments that played their role in the implementation of this project, with special mention of the Technical Services Division for implementing a massive rehabilitation strategy whereby the previous maximum rehabilitation of 250 km will be converted to 2,500 in a year. These efforts, he said, have helped to bring down overall UFG to less than 10 percent after nearly 2 decades. He hoped that the Technical Services Division would continue with the same momentum while rehabilitating in Northern Karachi and other areas. Ghulam Ali Mahar, DGM-In charge (P&C) moderated the proceedings as Master of Ceremony.
