KARACHI, Sept 27 The city is likely to face a water crisis in the next couple of years because both the federal and provincial governments have refused to allow the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) to draw an additional quota of water it requires to launch the Greater Karachi Water Scheme No.IV, commonly known as the K-IV project, to meet the future water requirements of the metropolis.

The KWSB's much-trumpeted K-IV project whereby the city will get an additional 600 million gallons of water per day (mgd) is to be completed in four phases. Each phase is likely to take three years to complete.

The project is scheduled to be completed by 2020 when city water needs are likely to jump from the present 720mgd to 1,260mgd of water.

Since the first phase of the project, which was scheduled to be initiated in early 2008 and was supposed to be completed by 2011, has already been delayed by at least two years because of bureaucratic wrangling and red tape, senior water board officials fear that the city already plagued with power riots because of an electricity crisis may face another round of riots over water in the next couple of years when its water supply requirement will reach 900mgd against the current supply of 720mgd.

At present the population of the city stands at 16 million, while it is supplied with 720 million gallons of water per day from the Indus River and Hub Dam sources. However, when the city population will hit the mark of 27.5 million in 2020, according to the City District Government Karachi Strategic Master Plan estimates, it will need 1,260mgd of water, say sources.

The KWSB, which has already used its quota of 1,200 cusecs (600mgd) of water from the Indus River with the commissioning of the 100mgd K-III project in 2006, cannot launch the K-IV project unless it is given the right of drawing an additional quota of water from the Indus River. The much-needed K-IV project has been in the doldrums for the last two years as the federal government has reportedly refused to allocate a separate quota of water from the Indus River to the KWSB for the project.

The federal government has asked the water board to seek the quota required for the project from the Sindh's share of the Indus source.The sources in the utility said that, on the one hand, the federal government was refusing to allocate a separate quota from the Indus source and, on the other, the Sindh government was also not willing to share its quota in the Indus source with the KWSB for the K-IV project on the plea that its quota was already inadequate to meet its own drinking and agricultural requirements.

Voicing concern over the inordinate delay in granting the KWSB the right of drawing 600mgd from the Indus River, senior water board officials fear that the city could face a drought-like situation if the issue was not settled at the earliest.

City getting water below its quota

Meanwhile, the KWSB chief engineer (bulk water supply), Najm-e-Alam Siddiqui, claimed that a survey undertaken by the utility officials had indicated that the city had been getting only 950 cusecs of water out of its allocated quota of 1,200 cusecs from the Indus source during the government of president General Ziaul Haq.

He said that the provincial government had been requested to allow the KWSB to utilise the remaining quota of 250 cusecs (which comes to around 125mgd) for launching the first phase of the K-IV project.

The KWSB managing director, Qutub Shaikh, has taken up the issue of low water discharge from the Indus River with the provincial irrigation secretary, Manzoor Shaikh, when the latter recently visited the utility's installations on a directive of the provincial chief secretary, according to Mr Siddiqui.