November 24, 2008	Monday	Ziqa'ad 25, 1429

KARACHI, Nov 23: The city is being supplied with contaminated water as the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board is mixing over 200 million gallons of unfiltered water with filtered water daily, it has been reliably learnt.

The capacity of all filter plants of the KWSB has been reduced drastically, forcing utility officials to mix raw water with filtered water before supplying it to consumers.

The city is getting 629 million gallons of water per day – 100mgd from the Hub dam source and 529mgd from the Indus River.

However, of the total 629mgd supply, only 415mgd is being treated at the KWSB’s seven filter plants, while the remaining 214mgd unfiltered water is being mixed with the filtered water.

The irony is that such a huge quantity of raw water is neither disinfected nor chlorinated, a necessary scientific process to make it safe, before its release into the water distribution system, sources have told Dawn.

Meanwhile, well-informed sources in the KWSB told Dawn that except for its North-East Karachi (K-II) filter plant which was treating water in accordance with its designed capacity of 100 million gallons of water per day, the capacity of four other filter plants had been reduced considerably while one of them was out of order owing to different reasons.

Speaking about the filtering situation of KWSB filter plants, sources said that filtration of water at the KWSB North-East Karachi (K-III) plant, having a capacity of 100mgd of water, had come to a halt while the filter plant set up at Gharo was currently treating only 20mgd, Pipri filter plant was treating 100mgd, COD filter plant 115mgd while Hub filter plant was treating only 80mgd of water.

They deplored that though the K-III water project had been launched a couple of years ago, whereby the city had started getting 100mgd, the project officials had failed to include the provision of a filter plant in its original plan or in the revised PC-1. As such, the K-III project was still without a filter plant, they added.

A known pathologist associated with a major medical university, Prof Sirajuddaula Syed, told Dawn that raw water not only carried all kinds of bacteria and viruses but also contained lead, mercury and even arsenic and consumption of such water for a long time might lead to water-borne diseases, besides affecting the nervous system in elderly people and could causing mental disorders in children.

He said in case raw water got mixed with sewage water, it might even cause typhoid, cholera, hepatitis A and E.

Prof Sirajuddaula advised people to either boil water or put a tablet of chlorine or use PMA-recommended water purification system before consuming the water.

Scarcity in city

Meanwhile, private water tankers had a field day on Sunday in various localities of the former district East where water shortage has been persisting for four days in the wake of an announced 72-hour closure of supply.

The KWSB had effected the 72-hour closure on Thursday for almost all localities of the district and certain important installations to undertake inter-connection work of a 48-inch-dia pipeline with a 54-inch-dia main line. Some of the affected localities continued to experience water shortage on Sunday, even after resumption of the supply from the source.

The affected localities included Landhi, Korangi, parts of Shah Faisal Colony, Defence Housing Authority, Qayyumabad, Manzoor Colony, Akhtar Colony, Hazara Colony, Korangi Thermal Power Plant and National Refinery. While the KWSB officials claimed to have resumed the normal supply on Saturday, residents of Landhi, Korangi, Manzoor Colony and Akhtar Colony complained that their households were not receiving water and had to buy private tankers’ water.

Criticising the KWSB officials for not announcing the closure before suspending the supply for 72 hours, they said they had not stored water to meet their daily requirement during the period.

They complained that the private tankers operators, in view of the growing demand in the localities, charged exorbitantly high rates ranging Rs500 to 700 per tanker.

The families residing in a huge housing complex — Civic View Apartments — located in Block 13-D, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, complained that they had been experiencing acute water shortage for the last couple of months but the KWSB officials concerned had not been taken measures to rectify the fault responsible for the lingering problem. They said that the complaints lodged with the them during the period had so far fallen on deaf ears.

They urged the KWSB high-ups to direct the engineers concerned to ensure restoration of normal water supply to the locality, that included their apartment block, housing around 500 families.