KARACHI, July 20: Almost the entire city has been in the grip of acute water shortage for the last couple of days reportedly owing to the faulty water distribution system. The water shortage has consequently given a boost to the sale of private water tankers.

Complaints of contaminated water have also been received from Clifton’s Block 2, Al-Hilal Society and Bangalore Town, off Tipu Sultan Road.

Severity of the situation could be gauged from the fact that complaints in this regard have been received from different localities of all the five former districts of the city including South, East, West, Central and Malir and West.

The hard-hit localities include Lines Area, Abysinia Lines, Mehmoodabad, Manzoor Colony, Akhtar Colony, Al-Hilal Society, Shireen Jinnah Colony, almost all blocks of Clifton, parts of Bath Island, Malir, Saudia Colony, Khokarapar, Gulshan-iIqbal’s Block 2, Al-Hamra Society, Jinnah Cooperative Housing Society, Bangalore Town, North Karachi’s sectors 5C/1 and 5C/2, Buffer Zone’s Sector 16-B, parts of Orangi and Baldia, Pak Colony, Lyari’s Baghdadi, Mossa Lane, Pakistan Chowk and Haqqani Chowk.

Terming the current water shortage ‘artificial’, the KWSB sources said that as there was no water supply monitoring system in place, valve-men had been managing the water distribution system. They alleged that the valve-men were busy tampering with the system to extort money or to boost the sale of private tankers.