02 March 2004	Tuesday	10 Muharram 1425

KARACHI, March 1: Various parts of the formerly Central and West districts will either go dry or receive scant supply on Ashura day (Tuesday) in the wake of a short supply of 24 million gallons of water from Hub source on Monday.

Water supply to the city from the Hub pumping station came to halt at 11am on Monday following a cable fault that occurred in the KESC's back-feeder, besides another fault in the main feeder meant for power supply to the same pumping station.

A spokesman for the KWSB said that power supply to the installation remained suspended for more than seven hours, resulting in a short supply of 24mgd. Power supply to the Hub pumping station first stopped at 8am and resumed after one hour. Power went off at 11am again and, according to the KWSB, could not be restored fully till Monday evening.

The KWSB sources claimed that the KESC officials had partially restored the power supply at 6.15am but this could enabled the Board to activate only one of the four pumps installed at the station.

Contradicting the KWSB claim, a spokesman for the KESC said that power supply to the Hub pumping station was fully restored by 6.16pm. "As soon as the KESC got the message that a cable fault had occurred in the Hub pumping station's back feeder, a team of engineers, headed by a chief engineer, rushed to the site.

"Initially, the fault had occurred in the back feeder, but shortly afterwards another fault developed in the main feeder. Both the faults were, however, rectified by 6.15pm and power supply to the station was restored."

The localities which are likely to either go dry or get scant supply on Tuesday include different sectors of the sprawling townships of Orangi, Baldia, Surjani Town, North Karachi, Shershah and the residential and industrial areas of Site Town.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the KWSB said that the localities hooked to the Hub source were on Monday supplied water through an alternative source. Most of the localities of both the districts, which are hooked to the Hub source, have already been experiencing an acute shortage of since early January as the KWSB itself had got the supply curtailed by almost half from the source for eight weeks to carry out repair work at one of the two rising mains of the Hub pumping station as well as pipelines.

A KWSB official has, however, claimed that the supply had been restored on February 27 and the city was at the moment getting 91mgd from the Hub source. The residents of different sectors of Orangi and Baldia have complained that they were getting water in low pressure after every two/three days.

SEWAGE OVERFLOW: Filthy water gushing out of some clogged sewerage lines on Monday inundated a major portion of the New M. A. Jinnah Road (from Jail Chowrangi roundabout to Dawood College) causing inconvenience to motorists and presenting an ugly sight. Overflowing sewage also submerged vast portions of Kashmir Road, Dadabhoy Nauroji Road and another road housing Idara Noor-i-Haq of the Jamaat-i-Islami.