91pc of Karachi’s water is unfit to drink
In January, Mohammad Riaz, a chauffeur and father of five who lives in one of Karachi’s squatter colonies – Shirin Jinnah – decided to switch to bottled drinking water.
A month before that, another resident had filed a constitutional petition in the Supreme Court of Pakistan against several government offices, saying that they “are required to ensure provisions of potable water, sanitation and hygienic atmosphere to the people, but they have individually and collectively failed to discharge such fiduciary, statutory and constitutional duty”.
Riaz’s 22-year-old daughter Aasia, who lives with her husband and three-month-old son next door, says they buy water from a tanker: 45,400 litres every month for Rs4,000 ($37).
What was wrong with the water the agencies supplied?
“Often, we found insects crawling in it, and despite sieving it through the thinnest of muslins, we still found something passing through and getting into the filtered water.”
“Often the water tasted salty, or was cloudy,” adds her sister Rashida.
All of Riaz’s family members, including his wife, work as domestic help in homes around the more affluent area of Clifton, next to Shirin Jinnah.
Their jobs mean that they can afford the more expensive bottled water for drinking, but only if they use it sparingly.
“We are able to make the 25-litre barrel costing Rs200 ($1.80) last two days, even in the scorching summer heat,” says Aasia. Their neighbours have also started buying filtered water “which comes sealed”.
The judicial route
On hearing the petition in December 2016, the Supreme Court had constituted a judicial commission headed by Justice Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro of the Sindh High Court to investigate.