One of Karachi’s two bulk water supply systems is old, leakage-prone, PA told

The Sindh Assembly was informed on Monday that the supply system, which brought water from the Hub Dam source to Karachi, one of the two sources of bulk water supply to the city, had become old and leakage-prone as up to 30 percent of water supplied from it was lost through leakage.

Sindh Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah provided information to this effect while responding in the house to a call-attention notice of opposition legislator Syed Abdul Rasheed of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.

Speaking on the occasion, he said that the issue of water shortage in the city had been of much importance as the people had been facing this problem mainly because of a less quantity of bulk water being supplied to Karachi compared to water demand in the city.

Shah said the chief minister had envisaged a scheme to replace the outdated water supply system bringing water from the Hub Dam source to Karachi so as to plug leakages. He claimed that up to 200,000 gallons of water was distributed daily on a free of charge basis from the Sakhi Hassan water supply hydrant to needy people who lived in the areas without proper infrastructure for a water supply. He said that up to 78 percent of water from this hydrant was supplied to areas which did not have a regular water supply infrastructure.

He said the managing-director of the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board had been meeting the concerned lawmakers of the house regarding the issue of water supply in the city, and the chief of the water utility would continue to hold such meetings and in this regard he would himself go to the MPAs to meet them.

Speaking on the occasion, opposition legislator Shahnawaz Jadoon of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf said areas of the city in his constituency had been completely without water supply for the last four months.

He said that his constituency had been on the brink of ethnic riots owing to the issue of the water shortage. He said that people in the city would be compelled to forcibly close the Native Jetty Bridge under the protest drive against the water shortage.

The local government minister said that the provincial government had been working on the plan for the bulk K-IV water supply scheme and a sea water desalination plant to overcome the water shortage in the city.

Quackery

Earlier, speaking during the question hour of the session, Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho informed the house that some 198 clinics had been closed in the province under the provincial government’s drive against quackery.

She said the Sindh Healthcare Commission had taken action against four doctors in the province as two of them had been involved in unauthorised operations of clinics, while one such doctor had been performing surgeries related to genecology cases without having a specialized degree in the field.

She said that warning letters had been issued to some 500 doctors in the province for their involvement in unauthorized health treatment services. The health minister said 12 dialysis machines had been purchased for a government-run hospital in Larkana. She said separate dialysis machines were being utilised for patients suffering from HIV and hepatitis.

He said that when the province-wise data of dengue patients were analyzed, it was determined that there were more dengue patients in Punjab than in Sindh.

She said Punjab had 2,500 such cases, Islamabad alone had over 1,900 such cases, while there had been 2,838 cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She said that Punjab had witnessed more deaths due to dengue cases as compared to any other province.