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KARACHI, Oct 29: The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board’s current drive against defaulting bulk consumers has had the unintended effect of giving a boost to the sale of private tankers in at least three cantonment boards and the Defence Housing Authority whose water connections were cut off on Saturday and Sunday.
Residents of the water-deficit pockets who totally depend on the tanker service said that the tanker mafia, taking undue advantage of the situation arising out of the KWSB drive, has increased the rates of tankers from Rs500 to Rs700 for a 1,000-gallon tanker and from Rs1,000 to Rs1,200 for a 2,000-gallon tanker.
“If such a situation continues, we will have no choice but to consume sub-soil unhygienic water at the cost of our health,” a resident of Gulistan-i-Jauhar’s Block 8-A remarked.
It is worth noting that the KWSB has not been able to provide water connections in various localities of Gulistan-i-Jauhar and KDA Scheme-33 despite its claim that there is no water shortage problem in the city after the commissioning of K-III 100 million gallons per day project.
A number of cooperative housing societies and huge housing complexes of Gulistan-i-Jauhar and KDA Scheme-33 are still deprived of water connections by the zonal engineering officials on the plea that the existing pipelines of such localities are either punctured at several places or the K-III water is yet to be released in the pipelines despite the fact that a number of cooperative housing had not only got their water connections but had also paid huge amount to the KWSB under the head of water connection charges.
The KWSB drive against defaulting bulk water consumers continued for the third consecutive day on Monday when 200 more water connections of industrial and commercial organisations and educational institutions were disconnected.
The bulk consumers whose water connections were severed on Monday included Baqai University, Poultry Estate-II Dumlotee Road, People’s Steel Mill, Karam Ceramics Manghopir, Rizvia Cooperative Society, National Cement Industries, The Plaza Clifton, Moon Flour Mills, Javaid Engineering, Prince Electronics Industries and Nazar Industries.
Meanwhile, the City Nazim, Syed Mustafa Kamal, who is also chairman of the KWSB, has urged the officials to continue the drive till the recovery of outstanding dues from the defaulting consumers.
Asking the officials taking part in the drive not to yield to any pressure and discharge their duties honestly, he requested all the government organisations and industrial and commercial concerns to cooperate with the KWSB officials so as to improve the service of the water utility organisation.
A spokesman for the KWSB said that water connections of some defaulting bulk consumers who had deposited a cheque for Rs50 million against their water charges has been restored on Monday.
Working of the KWSB continued to suffer as its head-office and other main offices situated on Karsaz remained without electricity for the fifth consecutive day on Monday.
Power supply of the KWSB head office, situated behind the Civic Centre and other major offices, was disconnected five days back by the KESC because of non-payment of electricity charges which, according to the KESC officials, had shot up to over Rs3 billion.
Offices of all the senior officials of the KWSB, including its chairman, additional vice chairmen, managing director, deputy managing directors (Planning and Technical Services) and a number of chief engineers, are located at Karsaz while its head-office, situated behind the Civic Centre, houses the offices of its heads of finance, administration, computer and medical departments.
