KARACHI, June 11: Water supply position in certain parts of the city aggravated further on Friday amid frequent power failures and sizzling temperature, adding miseries to the residents of already water-deficit localities.

Taking undue advantage of the situation, private water tanker operators did a roaring business in the affected areas, particularly the formerly East and South districts. Most parts of the two districts either went without water or received scant supply on Friday in the wake of short supply from source.

The city had suffered a shortfall of 50mgd on Thursday owing to frequent power failures at Dhabeji pumping station and the leakages developed in two air-valves of the K-2 pumping house.

The localities where water supply was badly affected on Friday due to the short supply included Landhi, Korangi, Malir, Shah Faisal Colony, Defence Housing Authority, Manzoor Colony, Akhtar Colony, Hazara Colony, Gizri, Delhi Colony, Punjab Colony, Shireen Jinnah Colony, Bhutta Village and National Refinery.

Complaints of persisting water shortage also continued to pouring in at the newspaper offices from many other areas of the city. Most of the complainants appeared residents of Clifton's block 2, parts of Jutland Lane, Garden East, Soldier Bazaar, Shikarpur Colony, Saddar, old city area, Baldia, Orangi, North Karachi and Surjani, Iqbal Colony near Teen Hatti, parts of Lyari and Baghdadi, Cosmopolitan Society, etc.

Lashing out at KESC for resorting to unannounced load-sheddings in the prevailing hot and sultry weather, people residing in highrise buildings lamented that long spells of disruption in power supply had become a matter of routine these days.

In this situation, they added, they often failed to pump water into the overhead tanks of their plazas even if the underground tanks did have water. Residents of the localities where water could not be supplied said that in the absence of piped water, they had no choice but to either buy water from private tankers operators at exorbitant rates or consume subsoil unhygienic water at the cost of their health.

According to them, private tankers were charging between Rs450 and Rs500 per a tanker-load of water. Residents of Orangi's different union councils (UCs 5, 7, 9 and parts of UC 8), complained that although they were nowadays being supplied water on alternative days, the quantity was not at all sufficient, even for a single day.

A councillor of Orangi Town complained that on the one hand, a number of localities, including Ghausia Colony, Makhdoom Shah Colony, Ghaziabad, Chishti Nagar, Aziz Nagar, and Ali Nagar with adjoining localities, had been experiencing a crisis of water for the last one week and, on the other, the residents of water-starved localities were not being supplied tanker water free of cost.

Residents of Clifton's block 2 also complained that although they had been facing an acute water shortage ever since the advent of current summer, the concerned officials of the KWSB had not bothered to take remedial measures as yet.