KARACHI, July 1: About 700,000 residents of Orangi Town have been facing an acute shortage of water for more than 45 days while those of Clifton’s blocks 4 and 5 have not received water for almost three weeks.

The affected people complained on Tuesday that they had constantly been approaching the senior officials of water and sanitation department to look into the serious problem. However, they said, the officials had failed to rectify the fault that had resulted in the chronic shortage.

Complaints of persisting water shortage have also been received from Lyari’s Shah Beg Lane, New Kalri, Ramaswami, Ranchor Line, Kharadar, Mithadar and Bhimpura.

Meanwhile, Shehnaz Perveen and Amin Baloch, Nazim and Naib Nazim, respectively, of UC-9, Orangi Town, have criticized the W&S officials for failing to ensure an equitable distribution of water among various localities in the town.

They pointed out that the worst-hit localities included Urdu Chowk, Nishan-i-Haider Chowk, Faqir Colony, Millat Colony, Block L, Sabri Chowk, Benazir Colony, Makhdoom Shah Colony, Ghausia Baloch Colony, Ali Nagar, Chishti Nagar, Aziz Nagar, Warsia Colony and the adjoining areas.

They deplored that the concerned officials were quite indifferent though violent demonstrations against the shortage in front of the UC office had become order of the day.

Mentioning that water supply to Orangi Town used to be made every sixth day, they said that the residents often remained without water for 10 days altogether whenever the W&S department failed to release water on the day of their turn for one reason or the other.

They said although, the tanker service run by the rangers provided six tankers of 6,000 gallons each every day to the consumers within the UC limits, the quantity fell short of the actual requirement as the number of consumers was more than 200,000.

They urged Governor Ishratul Ibad to issue directives to the W&S department for an immediate setting up of a pumping station at Urdu Chowk from where tail-end areas could get water.

They said that the move would help contain the shortage not only in the UC-9 areas, but also in the entire limits of the UCs 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 as well as parts of the UC-8.

Ms Perveen and Mr Baloch recalled that the stone-laying ceremony for the Urdu Chowk pumping station by President Musharraf had been scheduled for June 13, 2000.

However, they regretted, the plan had been shelved by the officials of the W&S department for reasons best known to them.

“Had the pumping station been set up as per the plan, there would have been no water problem in many localities of the area,” they said.

The localities which went without water on Tuesday under the weekly water-holiday system include Clifton, Gizri, Delhi Colony, Punjab Colony, Shirin Jinnah Colony, Jinnah Hospital, National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Naval Officers Residents Estate-I, Bhutta Village and Navy Dockyard.

CLOSURE: The localities where supply would remain suspended on Wednesday are Garden East and West, Soldier Bazaar, Shikarpur Colony, Saddar, Old City Area and Cosmopolitan Society.