Water woes of Karachi to persist till completion of K-IV

The Provincial Assembly of Sindh was informed on Monday that the issue of acute water scarcity in Karachi would persist until the commissioning of the long-delayed K-IV bulk water supply scheme for the city.

This was stated by the parliamentary secretary in the PA for the local government department, Saleem Baloch, while responding to a calling-attention notice of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) MPA Hashim Raza.

In his calling-attention notice, the MQM-P legislator raised the issue of unjust water distribution in his constituency in the city that was creating serious hardships for the area’s residents.

The parliamentary secretary told the House that Karachi’s total water demand was around 1,200 million gallons a day (mgd), but only 600 mgd of water was available to meet this requirement.

He said that merely 500 mgd was available in actuality for meeting the water requirements of the city after taking into account the leaks in the bulk water supply system.

Baloch conceded in the House that Karachiites had to suffer acute water shortage in summer, and that this situation could only be alleviated after the completion of the K-IV project. He said that water would be supplied to the concerned residents of Karachi only on alternative days in the absence of the K-IV project.

He informed the PA that the concerned residents of Hyderabad faced a similar situation of acute water shortage due to frequent power failures at the water pumping stations. He demanded that water pumping stations get uninterrupted supply of electricity.

Another MQM-P lawmaker, Ali Khursheedi, speaking on his calling-attention notice, said that there was a sufficient bulk supply of water for fulfilling the water demand of the residents of District West in Karachi.

He said District West gets water from the Hub Dam. He added that up to 150 illegal water connections had been responsible for the acute suffering of the district’s residents due to the unavailability of water. He also said that bribery was brazenly involved in obtaining these illegal connections.

The legislator demanded that the provincial government seriously take up the issue because the residents in his constituency had been without water for the past 22 days.

Electricity

Sindh Energy Minister Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh assured the House that the provincial government would fully support if any power company came forward to end the monopoly of K-Electric in Karachi.

The energy minister was responding to the point of order raised by Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) legislator Mufti Qasim Fakhri about the power woes of Karachiites.

The TLP lawmaker informed the PA that his party had planned to move a resolution in the House against KE but the treasury benches were unwilling to support this move.

The energy minister told the concerned legislators that so far no company had come forward to work in the power sector for serving Karachiites besides KE.

He claimed that the provincial government, while working with KE, had resolved the issue of frequent power failures in a number of areas of the city.

Shaikh said that it was wrong to assume that the provincial government had been patronising KE. He asked the concerned TLP legislator to move his resolution in the legislature, saying that the Sindh government stood with the people of the province.