KARACHI, Nov 13: Residents of different water-starved sectors of sprawling Orangi Township on Wednesday staged a demonstration against persisting water shortage during holy month of Ramazan.

A large number of protesters assembled at Orangi’s Qadhafi Chowk to express their resentment over the non-availability of water in their localities and raised slogans against the KWSB officials.

They also pelted moving vehicles with stones and set fire to old tyres placing them in the middle of several roads.

Speaking to demonstrators, the elected representatives of the area criticized the KWSB for taking no effective measures to resolve their lingering water problem despite a number of complaints having been lodged with them.

They said that acute water shortage had been persisting in a vast area of Orangi since the stoppage of the supply from the Hub source.

“The KWSB officials have miserably failed to make any alternative arrangements to ensure smooth supply to Orangi despite the fact that its turn of receiving water comes every third and fourth day of a week,” they added.

They observed that the worst-hit sectors of the township included the union councils Nos. 5 to 9 and parts of UCs No, 1 and 4.

Refuting the KWSB’s claim that Rangers had been supervising an 1,800-strong fleet of water tankers operating in the defi-cit pockets of the localities hooked to the Hub source, a councillor of Orangi Town’s UC-9, Aftab Ahmed, revealed that only 573 tankers were at the Rangers’ disposal for the purpose.

He also rejected the claim that the tankers were providing ‘free water’ to Orangi, SITE and Baldia towns and clarified that the tanker operators were charging Rs150 for 1,200 gallons and Rs300 for 2,400 gallons of water from the buyers.