Protests are taking place in many Sindh cities over water shortages. The scarcity of irrigation water has become severe and a large part of the population lacks access to safe drinking water. Hyderabad too is facing the problem. Many areas of Hyderabad are home to working class families struggling to make ends meet due to the lockdown and now forced to pay for drinking water. According to WASA officials, the lack of safe water supply is affecting half a million people in the city.

Earlier this month, there was a drinking water crisis in several areas including Latifabad Kohisar, Qasimabad’s Old Wahdat Colony, Railway Society, Machhi Goth and Shahbaz Colony. Citizens held protest demonstrations to highlight the shortage. They said they had repeatedly complained to the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA), but the problem was not solved. They said the WASA’s failure to supply water had allowed the tanker mafia to raise prices. A tanker, which once cost Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000, is now sold for Rs 2,500 to Rs 4,000.

“During the lockdown, our livelihood was completely gone. We barely got through that hard time, now we are facing an even harder time. Most of what we earn is spent on buying drinking water, and we are left to wonder how we will pay for our daily bread” Manzoor Ali, a rickshaw driver, said.

The water shortage at Kotri Barrage has exacerbated the problem. Hyderabad is getting water from the former main of the Kotri barrage, from Akram wah and downstream Kotri. According to Mazhar Ali Shah, a former member of the Indus River System Authority (IRSA), “Hyderabad is supplied water from multiple sources. This makes accounting problematic. When the supply falls short, all pumping stations can claim that they are providing the full supply. If there were a single source the problem would be easier to address.” He also says that the WASA does not have enough reservoirs to store water for 15 days.

There are 3,000 kilometres of drinking water lines in three tehsils of Hyderabad. The WASA has more than 124,000 domestic and 5,000 commercial customers. According to official figures, Hyderabad’s population of 1.8 million needs 75 million gallons of clean water on a daily basis, but the city’s five filter plants are able to supply only 61 million gallons of water per day. The WASA operates four major filtration plants in the city. The agency has been facing financial difficulty since its subsidy was discontinued in the ’90s. It has been reported that the agency has been unable to pay its employees’ salaries consistently.

The citizens’ only options are to drink unsafe water and fall sick or to buy water from private filtration plants at an exorbitant cost.

Filtration plants were installed in Latifabad and Qasimabad by WASA at huge costs. According to reports, the filtration plants are in disrepair and some have become inactive so that some of the citizens get contaminated water. WASA managing director Zahid Hussain Khemtio was contacted several times for his opinion on the issue of the filtration plants, but he did not respond.

Dr Ismail Kunmbar, a sustainable development expert at Sindh Agriculture University, Tando Jam, says that a “lack of planning and coordination between the WASA and other authorities has created this issue.” He says that due to a growing population and urbanisation, the demand for water is increasing by the day, particularly during hot weather. “85 percent of Sindh’s ground water is not suitable for human or animal consumption,” Dr Kunmbar says.

People come to water pumps installed by philanthropists from miles away to fetch water and are forced to queue up. Citizens say that water borne diseases like jaundice are spreading and that the provincial government should take immediate notice and make the filtration plants operational. Their only options are to drink unsafe water and fall sick or to buy water from private filtration plants at exorbitant prices.

It has been reported that about 60 percent of the water supply is not chlorinated. A few years ago, a Water Commission was set up on the direction of the Supreme Court to investigate concerns about the failure of the administration to provide safe drinking water, sanitation and a healthy environment in Sindh. The commission had directed the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) to conduct biological and chemical tests on the water supplied to the people. The investigation had found that drinking water in 13 districts of Sindh, including Hyderabad, was harmful to health.

The PCRWR survey report had revealed that the water could cause serious disease including hepatitis, anemia and stunted growth.

Mazhar Ali Shah suggests that there should be only one or two water sources for a municipal supply and that these should be well maintained. He says they should also have storage capacity to bide over the shortfall days during the closure of the Kotri Barrage.

The writer is a journalist based in Hyderabad