KARACHI: Repair work completed Full supply from Hub resumes today
By Mukhtar Alam
KARACHI, Oct 23: The water and sanitation department of the city government is all set to draw a maximum of 100 million gallons of water a day from the Hub Dam.
The charging process of the Karachi Canal, through which Hub Dam water reaches the Hub pumping station (North Karachi) of the W&S department, would resume on Friday after a gap of about one month. Water-deficient areas, especially those falling in the formerly West district, would start receiving normal supply from the afternoon of Oct 25.
Over the past four and a half years, water supply from the Hub source remained irregular with consumers often complaining of scant supply or several days of suspension. The situation led to rationing of water in certain city areas, including Baldia town, Orangi town, Banaras Colony, North Karachi and Surjani.
Due to an overall water shortage, mainly owing to the suspension of supply from the Hub source, the now defunct Karachi Water and Sewerage Board had to make arrangements for water supply through tankers to affected areas and also resorted to curtail supplies to the areas hooked to Indus source in order to divert the conserved water to Hub-hooked areas.
A mechanical department employee posted at the Hub Pumping Station recalled that it was in 1999 when pumping of Hub water started declining from a full capacity of 100 millions gallons a day. Before the recent spell of rain in the catchment areas of Hub dam, the water supply from Hub had dropped to about 12mgd. The dam also remained dried for a considerable period.
Following the current year’s monsoon rains, however, the supply resumed though with certain limitation as the W&S department was not in a position to manage the full capacity supply through the canal and its pumping station.
Though the rains had filled the Hub reservoir to its full capacity, dilapidated water courses and channels prevented the authorities from risking a full flow into them. At the same time, cracks and leakages had been causing loss of water in a huge quantity.
Eventually, the department, in the last week of September, announced closure of Hub source for the purpose of repairing and maintenance. It started work on desilting of the canal and repairing the cracks, as well as strengthening of some of its portions, to ensure full capacity supply and prevent water-loss in channel. Till the scheduled closure, the department was drawing about 24mgd from the source.
At a press briefing during Thursday’s visit to the Hub Pumping Station, Karachi Supply Canal and Hub Dam by Mr Wasim Akhtar, Adviser to the Chief Minister, senior engineers of the water department said that the repair and desilting work of the canal and the overhauling of the pumping station had been completed at a cost of Rs22 million.
Different patches measuring a total of 4.5 kilometres of the 22-km-long Karachi Canal, have now been strengthened with geo-membrane to ensure protection against seepage or major breach in the canal, they told newsmen. The engineers said that water department was now fully prepared to receive and supply water to be delivered by Wapda from 8am Friday.
According to an engineer, the water would take eight hours to reach Wapda’s regulator and another 22 hours to reach to the Hub pumping station at Karachi. He said that the pumping station might take four hours to release it to the city areas.
The first day supply from Hub Dam would be around 40 million gallons. In the following few days, the supply would increase gradually up to 100mgd.
Speaking at the briefing, held in Wapda’s Rest House at Hub dam, the Mr Wasim Akhtar expressed the hoped that the city would be start receiving additional water from the first day of Ramazan.
He said that the areas like Orangi, Baldia, Banaras and Orangi-36 would now be getting a total of 65mgd from Hub source whereas North Karachi and Nazimabad would be receiving 15mgd, Paposhnagar 4mgd, Mianwali Colony 5mgd and Surjani Town 9mgd.
He said that about 35mgd, which had earlier been diverted to the water deficient areas, would now be available to its old recipients. As such, he pointed out, Gulistan Johar, Scheme 33, Keamari, Site, Saddar, Lyari, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Jamshed, Clifton, Landhi-Korangi, Defence areas and other areas would be getting additional water up to 4mgd.
He impressed upon the water department to ensure transparency in the process of water distribution and keep a watch on the relevant staff so that any mismanagement or foul play could be avoided.
The adviser referred to the resentment among Lyari people during the days of acute water shortage and said that they would now get a total of 16mgd.
Replying to a question, he said that Rangers-controlled tanker service would be phased out as water supply situation would definitely improve. The situation would further improve when the other mega project — K-3 scheme — would be completed. Work on the project, he pointed out, was in full swing.
Deputy managing director of the water board Syed Ikhlaq Ahmed, chief engineer (water distribution) Khalid Malik, chief engineer (Bulk distribution) Ali Muhammad Palijo, and senior engineers Farrukh Naeem and Misbahuddin Faridi apprised Mr Wasim Akhtar of water projects.
They maintained that with the fresh supply from Hub, the total water available to the city would be around 550 million gallons per day.
In reply to a question, they agreed that problems like seepage, leakage and bursting of pipelines might emerge in the initial stage of the 100mgd-supply process. However, they said, efforts would be made to overcome such problems in the minimum possible time.
Answering another question, they said that the present stock at the Hub reservoir could last about three years if the 100mgd supply was maintained regularly.
