04 December 2004	Saturday	21 Shawwal 1425

KARACHI, Dec 3: Houses, apartment buildings and commercial concerns on Lyari's Gul Mohammad Lane and Tannery Road's Street No 23 are getting contaminated for the last four days.

Residents of the affected locality said sewage might be mixing with drinking water somewhere in the KWSB system as they had been receiving contaminated water.

"It is for the second time during the last two months that we are facing such a problem and one will be surprised to know that when we discussed the issue with a KWSB engineer, he attributed the issue to non-availability of electricity at a pumping station in Chakiwara No 1," a resident of the locality said.

Apprehending that diseases might break out in the locality owing to consumption of filthy water, residents of the affected locality demanded of the KWSB managing director to instruct the officials concerned to immediately rectify the fault as they cannot afford to buy private tankers for such a long period.

SHORTAGE: Complaints of water shortage have also been received from Clifton's Block 2, Orangi Town's Ghausia Baloch Colony and Benazir Colony, parts of Saeedabad and Keamari.

Residents of Clifton's Block 2 said although the root cause of water shortage in their locality was illegal connections given from their pipeline to some influential people, the KWSB officials were not taking action against such illegal connections.

A UC councillor of Orangi claimed that he and the UC Nazim had apprised the KWSB officials about leaking pipelines, but no measures have been taken to plug them. Meanwhile, water gushing out from leaking pipelines is not only causing water shortage in different localities of UC-9, but was also damaging roads and streets where it often remains stagnant.

A KWSB spokesman said on Friday that the KESC would carry out repair work at the Dhabeji Grid Station on Sunday, owing to which electricity would remain suspended at pumping stations in Phase Nos II and IV for seven hours.

The spokesman further said that owing to power supply disruption, the city would experience a 50mgd water shortfall. However, supply from Dhabeji Pumping Station Phase No I and III would continue.