KARACHI: While it is common knowledge that residents of Karachi’s posh Defence Housing Authority are always complaining about water shortage, it was hoped that the rise in the water table following the recent monsoon rains would see an improvement in supply but nothing of the sort has happened so far.

For DHA residents it is a case of ‘water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink’ from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which speaks about water everywhere but undrinkable because it is not clean or safe enough to drink.

Nadir Jamal, a resident of Phase 2 told Dawn that they received some water, once in three weeks, from the pipeline. “And we have silently accepted this as the Cantonment Board Clifton [CBC] says that they are not getting enough water from the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board [KWSB]. Meanwhile, Clifton and PECHS are getting enough water,” he said.

“In fact, water in Clifton is overflowing from their underground tanks all the time and due to this their road surfaces have also become rough and brittle,” he pointed out.

Many localities in Defence receive water mixed with sewage; CBC blames KWSB for crisis

Sikandar Kazi, another resident of Phase 2, said that he was a very old resident of the area. “Many years ago, we used to get sufficient water, three times a week but things started changing some 15 years ago when we started getting water twice a week and then once a week. Now it is once or twice a month bringing on an acute water shortage,” he said.

“DHA used to be a big and well-planned housing society keeping in consideration the number of folks per house and their water needs. But it seems like those plans have been chucked out the window. It is not possible for a family of five to live on 2,000 gallons a month,” he said.

“We are told by the CBC that the KWSB is the culprit here but we are the third party here. What can we do about it? CBC should handle them and make sure that we get our supply.

“Now the KWSB has all kinds of problems such as maintenance work needed for their filtration plants or pumping stations. Sometimes there is a breakage in their supply lines. When that happened recently, our supply was just stopped. There are also things being said such as the KWSB deliberately breaking their lines in order to facilitate the tanker mafia, a cut of the money whom goes to the provincial government,” he said.

“And since DHA residents can afford tankers during any kind of water shortage, we are also in a way facilitating the tanker mafia. Our buying power is hurting us while if the same things happens in Clifton or PECHS, they will conserve water and not immediately go for buying water from tankers,” he explained.

“The thing is that CBC charges us the amount for our water one year in advance. But it should be a fee, not a tax. Also they charge this amount more for a 1,000 sq yard property and less for a 500 sq yard property. But whatever the size of our property and whatever amount we pay, we are not getting water through the lines,” he added.

Another resident of Phase 6, Kamran Khan, said that the water that they were getting from the lines was simply sewerage water. “We had to block our line because the water coming through it was gutter water. Other than that we have had no water since July 4,” he said.

“Actually, the gutter lines have been choked so the sewerage water is overflowing on the roads, too,” he said. “My house is located on 5th Street, Off Khayaban-i-Sehr and there is an empty plot on the 4th Street where a gutter line has collapsed due to which all the residents are getting gutter supply instead of water supply through their water pipeline,” he explained.

One more resident from the same area, Syed A.H. Jafri, who is also a resident of 5th Street off Sehr said that he did not get any water though the pipelines for two years “but after the rains we are getting water quite regularly from the line. However, it smells and tastes horrible. We understand that it may be contaminated water so we are using chlorine tablets to make it safe,” he said.

Mehdi Abbas, a resident of 23rd Street in Phase 5, said that they also got water through the lines only twice a month. “And that, too, only for one hour, which amounts to nothing. It doesn’t fulfil our household needs unless we arrange for a tanker,” he said.

“And sometimes the water that we get through the pipeline is mixed with sewage, but no action is taken regarding this issue even after complaining to the CBC. I have had to get my water tanks cleaned due to this,” he said.

Meanwhile, engineer Morawala, a resident of Phase 7 Extension said that he was not even given a water pipeline what to complain of no water coming through the pipelines.

In reply to all these complaints, the CBC issued a notification to their residents, explaining that a 72-inch diameter bulk water pipeline of the KWSB at the Dhabeji Pumping Station had burst on August 29 due to which water supply was stopped although now repair-work on it had been done and the water supply also had been resumed. The notification also ended with a request to all CBC residents to save water and use it carefully.

CBC clarifies

A CBC spokesman also told Dawn that according to a MoU which they had signed with the KWSB for provision of water supply to DHA in 1999, they were supposed to be getting nine million gallons per day (MGD) of water. “Now with the growth in population here in 2022, the demand for water in DHA is 16 to 17MGD and we are being supplied with only three to four MGD by the KWSB. It is this gap, which is preventing us from supplying water to our esteemed residents. I also want to point out here that we are not defaulters even by a penny in KWSB’s monthly bills,” he said.

“Even if they supplied us with nine MGD, we would have supplied water on alternate days or something to our residents but we are not even getting that much,” he said.

Asked about the KWSB joining hands with the tanker mafia, the spokesman said that it could very well be happening at KWSB’s hydrants. “Maybe they are selling water. But they are not giving it to us. Otherwise we would be more than happy to supply water through the pipelines to our residents,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2022