ISLAMABAD, Jan 26: Even though there are months to the summer season, the residents of Islamabad have started facing water shortage due to the poor management by the capital’s civic agency.

According to an official, Islamabad is supplied a total of 50 million gallons per day (MGD) water from Simly and Khanpur dams against its requirement of over 150 mgd.

The official said water withdrawal from the Simly dam was 23 mgd while the reservoir was hardly 48 feet from the dead level of 2,233 feet.

The current level of water at the Simly dam is 2,281 feet while its spill level is 2,315 feet.

“We are facing water shortage for the last one week and the tanker service of the CDA is also overbooked because of a long list of demand from different sectors,” said Sajid Khan, a resident of G-6/4.

Water theft Other than the supply and demand gap, water theft has become a common practice mainly from the supply line passing close to Bahara Kahu.

“Over 400,000 people are living in Bhara Kahu and they have no adequate water supply system,” said an official at the CDA engineering wing.

He added: “A 24km water line laid by the Japanese government in 1992 is also damaged and water is being stolen from there.”

Mukhtiar Abbasi, a resident of Bhara Kahu, said: “We have no regular supply of water from any source and all we are left with is to fill our bottles from these damaged pipelines.”

Damaged pipeline Leakage of water from the damaged pipelines also exposes the poor water strategy of the civic agency.

In an interaction with this reporter, the CDA member engineering had recently admitted: “Almost 30 per cent (22mgd) of water is wasted because of the damaged pipelines.”

When water is released in the pipelines early in the morning and evening, the leakage can be seen at the main intersections of sectors G-7, G-8, G-10, I-10, F-6 and F-7.

“A number of pipelines passing through different highways and even parks are damaged and one can see water being wasted,” said the official at the water wing refusing to share his name.

When contacted, CDA Chairman Syed Tahir Shahbaz told Dawn: “Let me check the issue and if there are reports relating to theft we will plug the loopholes.”

He added: “Let me go through all the reports related to the issue after which I can be able to give you a clear picture of the water crisis in the city,” he maintained.