KARACHI: Tankers play havoc with roads, public health
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, June 1: Mushroom growth of private hydrants supplying poor quality water to consumers is, on the one hand, playing havoc with the health of people and, on the other, has become a major source of devastation being caused to roads and streets.
Attributing the abdominal diseases, currently on the rise in the city, to the unhygienic and filthy water being supplied by the illegal hydrants through tankers, doctors apprehend that a number of serious diseases like diarrhoea and typhoid, might spread in the form of epidemics, in the city, particularly in those localities which remain without water for weeks together.
As an acute water shortage has been persisting in various parts of the city since long, the water business continues to thrive and as such not only the number of private hydrants and tankers has increased manifold in the recent months, but the quantity of water being supplied through tankers from nine hydrants of the city government’s water and sanitation department has also climbed up from 10 million (in 2001) to 13 million gallons a day recently. All the nine hydrants of the W&S department are functioning under the supervision of rangers.
RULES FLOUTED: Although it is mandatory upon owners of private hydrants to obtain non-objection certificate (NOC) from the city government’s health department and also to get their water periodically tested from laboratories, most of the hydrants are openly flouting the rules and go unchecked.
Those hydrants which avoid lab test are required to inform the general public, by posting a notice at some prominent place, that the water offered is only meant for industrial purpose. However, a large number of tankers drawing water from such hydrants are reportedly selling the water for human consumption in different water-starved localities, thereby posing a serious threat to the health of their customers.
Complaints of abdominal diseases continue to pour in at newspapers’ offices from most of those localities which either depend totally on private tankers service or consume unhygienic sub-soil water in the absence of the piped water.
A number of hydrants set up recently in different parts of # the city are doing a roaring business by taking two illegal connections from the W&S department’s main pipelines — one from 66-inch dia water main and another from 48-inch dia water main. Another such hydrant is situated on Plot Nos. LS-21/22 (ST-7), Sector 48-B, Korangi No 2 (Union Council-4).
DEVASTATION: Heavy movement of tankers, often with their leaking nozzles, have ruined a number of major roads and streets. They run round the clock to dispose of a superfluous list of water-seekers.
Their hectic shuttling and spillage have mainly destroyed roads and streets around the hydrants in particular and along their routes in general.
Meanwhile, the provincial Minister for Local Government, Mohammad Hussain, has directed the officials of the W&S department to take a stern action against all the officials responsible for creating artificial water shortage.
Presiding over a meeting, held in his office to discuss the lingering water shortage problem in Surjani Town, he asked the officials of the W&S department to restore normal supply in the township immediately and seek cooperation of Gadap Town’s Naib Nazim in removing illegal connections.
CLOSURE: The localities which would not be supplied water on Monday under weekly water-holiday system include all blocks of North Nazimabad, Federal B Area, North Karachi’s Shadman Town and parts of Nazimabad.
