KARACHI, July 20: Various parts of the city have been experiencing acute water shortage for the last one week. The hard-hit localities include North Karachi’s sectors 7-D/1, 7-D/2, 7-D/3, 11-A, 11-B, Clifton’s blocks 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8, Mehmoodabad, Akhtar Colony, parts of Baldia and Orangi towns, Jinnah Housing Society, Al-Hamra Society, Alamgir Society, Bahadur Yar Jang Society, Adamjee Nagar, Malir and Saudia Colony.

Residents of the affected areas complained that water shortage problem in their localities had been recurring after every fortnight but KWSB officials had not yet managed to restore uninterrupted supply despite that a number of complaints had been lodged with them.

Accusing the valve-men of creating artificial water shortage, residents of Clifton’s Block-2 alleged that on the one hand artificial water shortage was created to give boost to the sale of private tankers and on the other illegal water connections had been given to influential people and commercial concerns, which had sprung up in the locality in the recent past.

A resident of Clifton’s Block-2 said that although a campaign against those who had managed to get illegal connections from main pipelines was launched sometime back by the KWSB, it was left halfway and thus the water shortage was still persisting.

Similarly, a resident of Bahadur Yar Jang Society said that magnitude of water crisis in his locality could be gauged from the fact that they had received water for only seven or eight days in June and for hardly four days in the current month.

The residents of the affected localities deplored that in the absence of piped water they were forced to spend a considerable amount of money on purchasing water from private tankers almost every month.