KARACHI: The city’s water crisis can be addressed only through efforts on multiple fronts including an overhaul of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB), stern action against water theft, construction of small dams, water conservation measures and putting in place a rainwater harvesting system in urban constructions.

These suggestions were put forward by representatives of government departments, different organisations and some prominent citizens at a conference titled Disasters of Water Stress: A case of Karachi held at a hotel on Wednesday.

The conference, organised by the National Forum for Environment and Health, was part of the Save Karachi series to create awareness about health and environmental challenges the city faces and their solutions.

The programme started off with brief speeches by Naeem Qureshi and Syed Nadeem Arif representing NEFH and Environmental Management Consultants (EMC), respectively.

Sharing their concerns over an increase in water shortfall, they said the programme was aimed at finding some practicable solutions to the chronic issue.

KWSB reform, cracking down on water theft also stressed at moot

Later, two short documentaries on water tankers’ operation in the city were screened followed by a detailed presentation on the subject by Saquib Ejaz Hussain, an environmentalist working with the EMC.

Regretting what he described as “an unplanned vertical and horizontal growth of the city”, Mr Hussain said Karachi’s population had dramatically increased in recent years to 25 million. 

“Its per capita water requirement is 35 gallons per day. The city daily requires 1,155 million gallons of water but it is supplied with 650MGD. Hence, there is a shortfall of 732.5MGD,” he said, adding that around 32pc water was lost to theft.

RO waste

Water shortage, he said, had led to massive installation of reverse osmosis (RO) plants, especially by industries, without developing any system for safe discharge of highly hazardous RO waste. The government also hadn’t looked into the matter so far, he added.

Acute water shortage helped the illegal water tanker operations flourish, which had become a multibillion rupee business, he said. Mr Hussain also spoke about drinking water contamination on a large scale and pointed out that six of the seven filter plants were not working. Besides, he added, the city had no system to treat its domestic and industrial waste that was discharged untreated into the sea.

KWSB official Hasan Ijaz Kazmi while responding to some points said the board was not an autonomous body and needed government nod for all its schemes.

“The water situation we are facing today took years to develop and it will take some time to improve it. The KWSB is in the process of addressing the gaps identified by the judicial commission. For instance, laboratories have been made functional to monitor water quality once government funds were available to us,” he said, adding that work on several projects was hindered due to paucity of funds.

Small dams

Prof Sarosh Lodi, the Vice Chancellor of NED University of Engineering and Technology, said that instead of relying completely on the Indus source the government should think about developing small dams along the Kirthar Range. 

He linked the situation to bad governance and said political will was needed to resolve the issue. “For me, the bigger problem is of Quetta getting dried up. It’s a city with 1.2m population and it’s likely that the people will migrate to Karachi if the situation worsens,” he said.

Retired engineer A.A. Chandani urged the KWSB authorities to tackle the issue of water contamination at source (the Keenjhar Lake supplying water to the city).

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2017