Apropos the above Metro headline (May 4).When we visit the seaside and watch huge waves crashing against rocks, sending sprays more than ten feet high we are awed by nature’s abundant water resources. However, when we return home hardly a few kilometres away there is no water to shower, perform ablution or for potable purposes.

Water-tanker prices have gone through the roof (Rs12,000) due to adverse supply and demand situation and the average household just cannot afford to buy water even at half these rates.

The Cantonment Board Clifton which charges the highest amount as water tax in Karachi used to supply water twice a week two years ago, once in five days last year and is now down to once in ten days. Requests for gratis tankers are not entertained anymore.

To make matters worse, unscrupulous residents have covertly installed suction pumps to draw their neighbours’ share of water.

We have been reading in newspapers since the last several years that Karachi is supplied less than half its requirement of water and that the K-4 project to make up the deficit is in the pipeline but its completion is still nowhere in sight.

All those responsible for the present situation are requested to stop passing the buck and do what is necessary to alleviate this critical shortage of water and the human suffering associated with it.

Asif Jah

Karachi

(2)

SUMMER is here and water supply in DHA is down from a trickle to none. I mean the old DHA, not the spanking new one.

In the old DHA, water supply is negligible andin the hands of Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC) whose officials say they supply water once a week for two hours.

When the water is not supplied, residents are left with no option except approach water tanker suppliers which charge Rs5,000 for a 2000-gallon tanker and deliver late in the night.

The only alternative is to book a plot in the new DHA and meanwhile brush your teeth in the Arabian Sea.

Shireen Syed DHA

Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2015

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