KARACHI, Jan 25: Several parts of the city have been experiencing acute water shortage for four days which is quite unusual in winter months.

While the authorities concerned are yet to justify the situation, there has been an increasing activity of water tankers shuttling from one locality to the other noticed over the past week. In addition to the areas that often experience a short supply, the localities are also receiving less than the normal supply.

Among the worst-hit localities in the current spell of water scarcity are Gulshan-i-Iqbal’s Blocks 2 and 4-A, Clifton’s Block 2, parts of KDA Scheme-33, Mehmoodabad, Akhtar Colony, Manzoor Colony, PECHS Block 6 (Greenbelt Area), and some other parts of the old city area, including Kharadar.

Residents of Gulshan-i-Iqbal’s Block 4-A (Journalists’ Society) stated that they inquired from Karachi Water and Sewerage Board officials about the short supply since Tuesday and were told that the pumping station of the area had gone out of order. They wondered that a fault rendering the pumping station dead could not be rectified in four days and the KWSB engineers were still unable to tell how many days they would take to revive it.

They pointed out that they the situation had forced them to buy expensive tanker water. They accused the KWSB officials of having created the artificial shortage to give a boost to the private water tanker business.

Residents of the areas affected by the water shortage have attributed the situation mainly to the illegal connections, claiming that the practice had been resorted to by unscrupulous commercial consumers in connivance with the officials concerned.

They pointed out that a large number of illegal connections had been installed to draw water from the main lines passing through their localities, adding that influential figures and certain commercial concerns were involved in the illegal practice.

They called for a ruthless drive to remove all illegal connections and exemplary punishment to the officials involved in helping and encouraging such practices.

Residents of the city’s old areas said that water shortage in their localities had been persisting for a couple of months but the situation these days had worsened. They said the KWSB authorities were paying no heed to their repeated complaints in this regard.

The affected people of Kharadar, Jaffar Fuddu Road, Taboot Lane, Gao Gali, Punjabi Club and other localities said that owing to the uncertainty about an end to the shortage, the “tanker mafia” was charging higher than the normal rates from the consumers of the old city areas.

Residents of Akhtar Colony, Manzoor Colony and Mehmoodabad also lamented that the KWSB was not making an effort to bring an end to the water scarcity in these areas.