KARACHI, Sept 29: Water supply to the city and Lasbella from the Hub dam source has been suspended for 20 days as the repairing and desilting work on the Karachi supply canal and Wapda’s Hub main canal has been undertaken. The two canals are in bad shape since long.

The repairing and related works, which began on Monday at an unspecified cost, is aimed at strengthening the Hub supply system for drawing 100 million gallons of water, on the eve of Ramazan.

The works — including repairing of cracks which have surfaced at a number of places in the Karachi supply canal, repairing of the rusted pillars in the Wapda canal’s aqua-ducts, desilting and removal of weeds from both the canals, and plugging of major pipelines — will be carried out in two phases. The first phase was commenced on Monday while the second will start from Oct 14. The works will be complete by Oct 23.

The supply from the Hub dam reservoir to the localities hooked to the Hub source will continue in between the closures, that is from Oct 9 to Oct 13.

Although during the closures all the localities hooked to the Hub source will continue to be supplied 52mgd of water from the Indus source — 42mgd via Ajmair Nagri pumping station and 10mgd through Board Office pumping station — the gap between their supply timings might be increased from existing 72 hours to a maximum of 102 hours.

This means that all the localities hooked to the Hub source — including sprawling townships of Orangi, Baldia, North Karachi, Surjani, Shershah, Mianwali Colony and SITE (both the residential and industrial areas) — will experience water shortage until the repairing and desilting works on both the canal are completed.

Water from the Hub source is first released to the 5.2-mile-long Hub main canal and from there it passes through the 14-mile-long Karachi supply canal and 21-mile-long Lasbella branch canal before reaching Karachi and Lasbella.

The Hub main canal is maintained by Wapda. The Karachi supply canal which the Wapda had handed over to the KWSB in 2001 is maintained by the city government’s water and sanitation department and Lasbella branch canal by the Balochistan government.

Although the Hub dam’s reservoir attained its full supply mark of 339ft on July 29 in the wake of heavy rain, both its beneficiaries — Karachi and Lasbella — were not getting their full quota as the canals were in bad shape. As a result a huge quantity of water was being wasted.

However, with the completion of repairing and strengthening work on both the canals, the city will be in a position to draw 100 million gallons of water per day from the Hub dam reservoir which had been replenished due to the rain. Till Sunday, the city was getting only 24mgd of water from the Hub source.

Asked if the city would start getting full supply of 100mgd after completion of the works undertaken, a senior official of the W&S department said efforts would be made to draw this amount gradually from Oct 24.

He said the weekly holiday system which is in vogue in the localities hooked to Indus source since October last — for diverting Indus water to the localities getting supply from Hub source — might also be done away with following completion of the works.

The decision to undertake repairs of the canals was taken at a high-level meeting held here recently under the chairmanship of Sindh’s Additional Chief Secretary, Ghulam Sarwar Khero. The W&S department’s EDO, Brig Asif Ghazali, besides senior officials of Wapda and Balochistan’s irrigation department also attended the meeting.