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KARACHI, April 10: Water supply position of the city’s two sprawling townships — Baldia and Orangi — has been getting worst day by day and has led the areas’ elected representatives to apprehend that the affected people’s resentment and outrage over the unending sufferings might create law and order problem if immediate measures were not taken to improve the supply position.
“The seriousness of the lingering water issue can be gauged from the fact that almost half of Baldia Town’s population, i.e. between 300,000 and 350,000, often goes without water for 10 to 11 consecutive days. And in addition to this, two union councils do not have the facility of piped water,” Nazim of Baldia Town Aurangzeb Khan told Dawn on Thursday.
Though the entire town is supposed to receive the supply after every five days, water is released in such a low pressure that half of the population gets it usually after every 10 days Deploring the relevant authorities for their indifferent attitude, he said that the Nazims and councillors of various union councils of the town had become fed up with the situation. He said that persisting water shortage public pressure had left no option open for the elected representatives but to lock up their offices in order to escape public outrage.
He said that on the one hand, Baldia Town was not being supplied water from the Hub source and, on the other, some unscrupulous elements continued their practice of tampering with the value operation in Orangi Town as the pipeline through which Baldia was being supplied water passed through Orangi Town.
He suggested that such a problem could be solved only by deploying rangers personnel on permanent basis at all spots from where water was pilfered.
Mr Khan said that although rangers have been assisting the city government’s Water and Sanitation Department by providing water through tankers, still a number of localities of the township had been experiencing a crisis.
“I have repeatedly been requesting the W&S Department officials to improve water supply position but all my efforts in this regard have gone in vain and now I have decided to bring the lingering water issue to the notice of the City Nazim and director general of the rangers,” he said.
Aurangzeb Khan went on to say that he would have no choice but to lock up his office if they, too, failed to help solve the problem. “It is no more possible for me to keep on pacifying the jittery residents of the water-starved localities as they cannot remain without water for weeks together in the prevailing hot and sultry weather,” he remarked.
ORANGI: Complaints of persisting water shortage have been received from Orangi Town also.
A councillor of Orangi Town’s Union Council-9, Aftab Ahmed, complained that a vast area of the township, spread over at least six union councils (UCs No. 1 to 5 and 9), has been experiencing acute water shortage for the last one month mainly because the concerned officials of the W&S Department often failed to implement water schedule of their localities in letter and spirit.
According to him, almost all the localities belonging to the above-mentioned UCs, including Makhdoom Shah Colony, Warisia Colony, Nishan-i-Haider Chowk, Millat Colony, Aziz Nagar, Iqbal Baloch Colony, Junaid Nagar and Bewa Quarters, are deprived of water for the last 10 days as the pipelines of these localities remain dry on their previous turn of supply.
“In fact, protest demonstrations in front of UCs’ offices have become a matter of routine and only last week the residents of water-starved localities had even beaten up two councillors,” he added.
Both Orangi and Baldia townships have been facing acute water shortage since October last when their supply from the Hub source had come to an end and, with a view to offset the water shortage problem of these localities, the W&S Department had introduced water-holiday system in the localities getting their supply from the Indus source for diverting the same to the localities hooked to the Hub source.
Though the supply position in Baldia, Orangi and other localities hooked to the Hub source was to improve to some extent after March 4, when the city’s supply from the Hub source was restored, the supply position of these localities as well as Shershah, North Karachi, Surjani and the Site industrial area has once again started deteriorating for about a month.
SHORTAGE: Reports of water shortage continued to pour in from other parts of city. The affected people who contacted newspaper office appeared residents of Sindhi Muslim Cooperative Housing Society, parts of PECHS blocks 2 and 3, Lyari, Kharadar, Pakistan Chowk, Haqqani Chowk, Clifton’s Block 2, etc.
They said that it was for the last four weeks that they had been getting water only once in a week and as such they had no choice but to purchase private tankers’ water at an exorbitantly high rates.
