KARACHI, March 16: Immediately after the activation of monitoring system, the metropolis started getting an additional five million gallon per day (mgd) water from Hub Dam source. It is yet to be established as what had been causing a loss of 10mgd water for many days while it had been on way to Karachi via ‘Karachi Canal’.

A senior official in the city government’s Water and Sanitation Department (W&SD) confirmed on Sunday that the city was now getting 20mgd from the Hub Dam source “following an increase in pumping by Wapda.”

Water supply to the city from Hub source was restored on March 4 after a gap of four-and-a-half months but there was a difference of 10mgd water between the actual supply (25mgd as claimed by Wapda) and total arrival (15mgd confirmed by the W&SD) that stirred a controversy between the two departments.

From the day one, Wapda had been insisting that it was releasing 25mgd from the Hub Dam reservoir’s sluice gate. However, the W&SD continued to refute the claim declaring that only 15mgd was reaching at the receiving end — the pumping station just 19 miles from the Hub reservoir.

The issue of 10mgd loss became so serious that it had to be taken up at a high-level meeting chaired by the Additional Chief Secretary, Sindh, Ghulam Sarwar Khero. The meeting was attended, among others, by the Secretary Irrigation, Balochistan, A. Salam Khan; W&SD’s EDO, Brig (r) Javaid Ashraf, DO (Technical Services), Suleman Chandio; Wapda’s Chief Engineer (Water) South, S. Raghib Abbas Shah and Hub Dam Project’s Resident Engineer, Inamullah Khan.

Stressing the need for resolving the issue on priority basis, the meeting decided to form a Wapda-W&SD joint team with a task to measure and monitor the supply so as to find out how much water was actually going waste and from where. Initially, it was believed that evaporation and line loss were responsible.

The senior W&SD official, Mr Suleman Chandio, told Dawn that “since Wapda has increased the supply from the Hub source, the Hub pumping station has started getting more water.”

“We received 20mgd water at Hub pumping station in the second turn from the Hub source,” he said, adding that the Wapda was now releasing 23mgd to the city.

“In fact, it is beyond Wapda officials’ control to release the actual quantity of 25mgd as there is a free flow of water from the reservoir,” he pointed.

While the W&SD was getting 15mgd water over a spell of 72 hours from the Hub source, the localities hooked to the Hub source were being supplied 12mgd on their turn and the W&SD officials had been maintaining that the rest 3mgd was going waste across its 19-mile channel due to evaporation, line losses, etc. However, now when the city has started receiving 20mgd at its receiving end, the quantity of water being supplied to the destination areas will gradually get an increased quantity.

Meanwhile, residents of the areas hooked to the Hub source, which include sprawling townships of Baldia, Orangi, Surjani, North Karachi and Shershah, have complained that they were still getting water supply after every five days despite the W&SD officials’ pledge that the gap period would be reduced.

They recalled that the officials had told newsmen at the time of resuming Hub source supply that the gap period would be reduced to four days.