KARACHI, Dec 4: Hundreds of men, women and children staged a sit-in on Mauripur Road on Wednesday to protest against the persisting water shortage in their locality.

The protesters converged at around 7.30am near the People’s Play Ground blocking the Mauripur Road and continued their sit-in for many hours as neither any senior KWSB official nor any elected representative of Lyari Town visited the them to listen to their grievances.

As a result of the sit-in, vehicular traffic on this artery, which is a vital route linking Keamari, Lyari and Site towns, remained suspended for four hours. The blockade also caused traffic mess on Shah Waliullah Road, Shah Latif Bhittai Road and Mirza Adam Khan Road as hundreds of vehicles had to follow these alternate routes.

The protesters deplored the indifferent attitude of the KWSB and the elected representatives to the acute water shortage in Hingorabad, Ali Mohammad Mohalla, Baloch Para and the adjoining localities for quite some time. They pointed out that a series of protest demonstrations, rallies and sit-ins over certain period of time to draw the attention of the authorities had mischievously been ignored by the relevant officials. Even they paid no heed to their calls for a remedy to this chronic problem during the holy month of Ramazan, they added.

Rejecting the stereotype soothing claims, by certain officials, of non-availability of water, the protesters said that the supply position did improve for a few days whenever people took to the streets and resort to agitation.

The residents of Ali Mohammad Mohalla complained that although pipelines had been laid and inter-connection works in some parts of streets completed, water had not been released to their locality so far as per the assurances held out by the KWSB officials during the earlier public rallies.

An acute water shortage persists for several months in some parts of Lyari Town with Baghdadi, Shah Beg Lane and Kalri, including New Kalri (BSK), being among the worst hit areas.

The protesters ended their sit-in only when some Rangers officials, heading a motorized unit, offered sympathies to them and assured them that they would take up the issue with the concerned officials in order to ensure the restoration of normal water supply to their areas at the earliest.

It may be mentioned here that the residents of the water-starved localises have long been accusing valvemen at pumping stations of diverting their share of water to commercial consumers by accepting bribe. The KWSB officials, however, attribute the chronic problem to the location of these areas saying that certain areas of Lyari Town fall at the tail-end of the distribution system. They also enlist technical and other problems as some of the contributing factors.