KARACHI, July 21: The city’s overall water supply has dwindled to mere 427 million gallons a day as against its total supply of 687mgd due to prolonged power outages at the water pumping stations, short supply from the Hub Dam source, theft and other losses.

Since the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board used 35 per cent of its supply for purposes other than domestic supply, the water being supplied to residential areas was a little over 265mgd.

Senior KWSB engineers associated with its water distribution system deplored that at a time when the city was facing a shortfall of 200mgd, the arbitrary cut of 25mgd applied by those manning the Hub Dam project and 20mgd to 30mgd less pumping of water because of power breakdowns at the pumping stations further widened the demand and supply gap to more than 250mgd.

KWSB chief Misbahuddin Farid warned that the city might experience an acute water shortage in Ramazan if the utility’s pumping stations were not exempt from scheduled or unscheduled loadshedding, electricity faults occurring at its vital installations including Dhabeji pumping station pumping station, were not attended to promptly and rectified and the city’s quota of 100mgd from the Hub dam project was not restored without delay.

He said that operation of more than 160 water pumping stations and 22 sewerage pumping stations was being badly affected due to power outages and an inordinate delay being caused in rectifying the faults. He warned that the situation would become worse in the coming days if the KESC did not pay heed to his appeal for uninterrupted electricity supply at the pumping stations.

Expressing concern over the crisis, the water utility chief engineers of all the five districts of the city and other engineers responsible for water distribution apprehended that while there were street protests against power outages, people might take to the streets against water shortage also if the shortage persisted.

The officials said they were neither able to ensure equal distribution nor were they in a position to meet the schedule of supply of the districts falling within their remit due to outages occurring at the local pumping stations.

They said that since there was already a gap of around 200mgd in the city supply and demand, the KWSB with a view to offsetting the shortfall had been supplying water on alternate days to most localities. But whenever an area missed its turn due to a power outage at the pumping station concerned, the locality failed to get the supply for two consecutive days until its next turn, the officials said. They deplored that while power outages at local pumping stations had become a matter of routine, power faults occurring at the pumping stations and other vital installations often remain unattended in the wake of longstanding standoff between the management and employees of the Karachi Electricity Supply Company. As long as the fault was not rectified the water supply schedule remained inoperative, they said.

Various parts of districts east and west are already in the grip of an acute water shortage for the last fortnight and the hard-hit localities included Landhi, Korangi, Shah Faisal Colony, Malir, Saudabad, Khokhrapar, Orangi Town, Baldia, Site (both residential and industrial areas), Shershah, Mauripur, Pahar Ganj, Hawkesbay, Pak Colony, KDA Scheme-33, Mehmoodabad, Manzoor Colony, Akhtar Colony and some private cooperative housing societies.

KWSB officials said that at present, the city had a total bulk supply capacity of 720 million gallons of water per day (645mgd from Indus River and 100mgd from Hub Dam). However, about 33mgd of raw water was being drawn from the K.G. Canal before Gujjo headwork for supply to the Pakistan Steel and Port Qasim Authority, reducing the city’s total bulk water supply capacity to 687mgd. Since 33 per cent water is wasted or lost due to various factors, the supply is further dropped to 477mgd.