KARACHI: KESC fails to maintain supply in most areas
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, May 3: Several parts of the city on Wednesday experienced an acute water shortage in the current hot and sultry weather owing to frequent power failures occurring at local pumping stations.
The worst affected localities include different sectors of North Karachi, parts of Surjani, Baldia and Orangi, Clifton’s Block 2, Mehmoodabad, Ashraf Colony, Kharadar, Gulshan-i-Iqbal’s blocks 2 and 5 and North Nazimabad’s sectors L, S and T.
People residing in multi-storied buildings complained that frequent power failures had badly affected their water supply as they cannot pump water to their overhead tanks despite having water in their underground tanks.
Sources in the KWSB said although they have repeatedly requested the KESC to exempt pumping stations from load-shedding, power failures of longer duration continues to take place.
Residents of the affected localities of Baldia, Orangi and Surjani said they have been facing acute water shortage for the last one week or so.
Admitting that certain tail-end localities of Baldia, Orangi and Surjani have been facing water shortage, sources in the KWSB said their water supply position would improve considerably in a couple of days with the installation of an 84-inch valve in an 84-inch pipeline at North-East Karachi pumping station.
The installation work would begin on Monday morning and would be completed by 6pm Tuesday and shortly afterwards, all localities hooked to the Hub dam source which include Orangi Town, Baldia, SITE (both residential and industrial areas), Surjani and Shershah, would start getting sufficient quantity of water, sources said.
Despite tall claims on the part of the KESC regarding an end to the load-shedding, there was no letup in power outages in the city even on Wednesday, adds Online.
Power breakdowns ranging from two to three hours daily have become a routine affair in Lyari, Baldia, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Landhi, Malir, Orangi, Korangi, the F B area and other parts of the metropolis.
The KESC has no good news for Karachiites who are waiting for the commissioning of the Hubco-KESC link project in the mid of May.
With the project’s completion, a reduction in power outages is expected in the city.
Sources in the KESC said the corporation’s planning in this regard had failed as Wapda had refused to supply an additional 1,000 mw power to the KESC in line with the said project.
Sources said that Wapda had informed the KESC management that it would continue to supply only 550mw power to the city either from the Hubco link or the Jamshoro-KDA Grid Station.
The authority, he added had said that it was not in a position to increase even a single megawatt of power, sources maintained.
It may be mentioned that the federal government, before privatizing the KESC, had taken a decision that an additional 1,000 mw power would be supplied to the metropolis through the Hubco-KESC link project.
Sources apprehend that the power crisis would further aggravate in June-July as the city's power demand was increasing by six per cent annually.
