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KARACHI, Nov 11: Hundreds of men, women and children on Monday staged a sit-in near Ali Hotel on Baghdadi’s Shah Latif Bhittai Road to express their indignation over the non-availability of water in their localities for the last two weeks.
The demonstration began at around 3pm and was continuing till late in the night as neither any senior KWSB official nor the Lyari Town Nazim visited the protesters to listen to their problem. Police, however, remained alert to meet any eventuality.
Though the Lyari Town’s TPO and some junior officials of the KWSB tried to persuade the demonstrators to end their sit-in, their efforts bore no fruits as the demonstrators wanted only some senior KWSB officials to talk to them. They were critical of the senior officials’ indifferent attitude towards their chronic water saying that they were paying no heed to calls for help in resolving their water problem even during Ramazan.
The demonstrators lamented that although the water supply position had improved to some extent about two weeks back, it had worsened following the KWSB’s doing away with the system of the alternate day supplies.
The Lyari Town’s Naib Nazim, Malik Ahmed Awan, also accused the KWSB’s chief engineer of taking no interest in resolving the chronic shortage affecting badly the areas of Baghdadi, Kalri, Eidu Lane, Shah Beg Lane and its adjoining localities.
Malik Awan said that water supply position in Baghdadi and its adjoining localities had deteriorated following its stoppage from the COD filter plant to Lyari’s pumping stations at Musa Lane and Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai Road.
OTHER AREAS: Various parts of the city continued to experience an acute shortage of water on Monday giving a boost to the private tankers’ business which charged exorbitant rates in the affected localities.
The hard-hit areas included Qasba, Metroville, Pathan Colony, Bawani Challi, Shah Faisal Colony, Malir’s F-South Area, Liaquat Square and Khokhrapar.
The localities which went without water on Monday as part of the KWSB plan of diverting Indus water to the localities hooked to Hub source included all blocks of North Nazimabad, Buffer Zone, Shadman Town, Nazimabad and Federal B Area.
Water supply to all blocks of Clifton, Gizri, Delhi Colony, Punjab Colony, Shireen Jinnah Colony, Bhutta Village, Naval Dockyard, NORE-1 and GE Army installation would remain suspended on Tuesday.
The city’s three major hospitals — Jinnah Post-graduate Medical Centre, National Institute of Child Health and National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases — also would not be supplied water on Tuesday.
It is for the last three weeks that the KWSB has been suspending the supply to all the Indus source-fed localities under holiday system. However, the supply situation continues to deteriorate with each passing day instead of having been improved. The Board seems to have failed in achieving the objective of overcoming the shortage caused in the wake of stoppage of supply from the Hub source.
Residents of different localities getting their supply from Indus source complained that they were receiving water only for three-four days contrary to the KWSB’s claim of pursuing one-day holiday.
