KARACHI: Water level in Hub Dam has reached a critically low degree as only around seven inches of water is reportedly left in the reservoir, which may last hardly for a couple of days.

Major portions of district West and some areas of district Central has been facing an acute water shortage because of the dwindling supply from the dam, highly placed sources said. They added that alternative arrangements were being made to supply water to these areas.

However, supply from the dam was expected to increase once water pumps being installed began operating in the next few days, the sources added.

The 30-kilometre-long canal supplies around 100mgd water to Karachi

A spokesman for the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB), responding to Dawn queries, said he could not confirm the exact measurement of the level of water in Hub Dam at the moment but conceded that it was quite low. He said that many areas connected to the dam were facing a severe water shortage while water from the Indus supply system was being provided to those areas.

The sources said that lack of rainfall in the dam catchment area had made the situation drought-like, while a major area of the dam’s reservoir — around 26 square kilometres — had almost dried up with hardly half a foot of water left.

The designed capacity of the roughly 30-kilometre-long long Hub canal supplies around 100 million gallons of water daily (mgd) to the metropolis.

Its old structure and poor maintenance had resulted in leakages and breaches because of which hardly 80mgd of water was being supplied to consumers at the time when enough water was available in the dam. However, during the current situation around 12mgd of water is being supplied to the city.

Diversion from Indus distribution system

Meanwhile, a certain quantity of water was being diverted from the Indus distribution system to Hub Dam so as to mitigate the scarcity of this commodity, he said.

The KWSB spokesperson said that currently around 12mgd of water was being supplied from Hub Dam while the KWSB was installing heavy duty water pumps in the reservoir to supply from it an additional 35mgd of water to the city. The pumps were expected to be operational in the next couple of days.

Also, around 50mgd of water coming from the Indus source was being diverted to the Hub pumping station to be distributed through its network to water scarce districts of West and Central, he added.

Many old public tanks had been restored and rehabilitated while many more were being constructed in the affected areas to restore supply through water tankers, he added.

However, the KWSB was making efforts to judiciously distribute water to all areas of the metropolis, particularly localities which were water scarce, even though water was in limited supply, he concluded.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2018