HYDERABAD, July 7: Thousands of residents of Kotri, kutcha abadis and industrial areas are getting polluted water which is not fit for human consumption.

The water is mixed with domestic and industrial effluent, which is directly discharged in the Kalri Baghar Feeder (KB Feeder).

This was revealed in a visit on Saturday by this correspondent along with officials of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to collect samples of water from KB Feeder in connection with the Water Quality Assessment programme.

The programme, to be completed in next four months, was launched by the EPA, Sindh, in collaboration with the National Drainage Programme (NDP), to determine the level of contamination and discharge of domestic and industrial waste in water all over Sindh.

Apart from the World Bank, which has provided financial assistance to the project, findings of the exercise will be sent to civic bodies, like Karachi Water & Sewerage Board, Hyderabad Development Authority, Water and Sanitation Agency, Kotri Association of Trade and Industry, to adopt effective measures to check the discharge of effluent in different resources that provide water to cities, towns, villages, kutcha abadis and industrial areas.

According to a rough estimate, four and two cubic feet industrial and domestic waste per second respectively is being discharged in KB Feeder.

The director, Sindh EPA, F.H. Mughal, and assistant director, Hyderabad region, Kishan Chand Mukhwana, said that in the first phase of the programme, samples would be collected from 30 different points of the province during 25 days, including ten in districts of defunct Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas divisions.

The EPA officials deplored that the same water resources, supplying water to Hyderabad, Kotri or other areas, were also being used for draining out domestic and industrial waste.

Presently, the flow of KB Feeder is better than the past which resists the discharge of industrial and domestic waste in feeder to some extent.

The KB Feeder, the officials said, not only irrigated lands of Dadu and Thatta districts but also catered to the drinking and domestic needs of Kotri, Thatta and to some extent of Karachi.

The structure that was to be used to allow excess water in case of rainfall into KB Feeder has been damaged and the irrigation department has failed to repair this structure which could otherwise have prevented the waste from being discharged into the water source.

The path, which can be used by vehicles for inspection, is also covered by wild bushes, rendering it useless even for passersby.

A meeting was held on May 24 in Kotri to discuss the possibilities of making a waste water treatment plant.

The superintendent engineer of KB Feeder, Mumtaz Memon, had told the meeting that four cusecs of industrial waste entered the feeder downstream of bridge on the National highway while two inlets, each of two cusecs, dispose of domestic waste of about of ten colonies.

The chief engineer of Site, Kotri, had claimed that work on waste water treatment plant would begin from August 1.

However, the EPA officials said that so far no ground work had been done to establish the plant and the residents continued to consume polluted water.