KARACHI, May 16: The city's overall water supply will be affected badly on Monday as the pumping of water to the city from the Dhabeji pumping station's Phase-II remained suspended for more than 10 hours (from 10.20am to 8.30pm) on Sunday.
Four pumps at the Dhabeji's Phase-II station came to a halt at 10.30am, as switches of the KWSB's sub-station got burnt, reportedly, owing to the overloading of power transformer at the consumers' end.
Though the KWSB officials claimed that the fault had occurred due to a flaw in the KESC's feeder, a spokesman for the power utility clarified that the switches were burnt at the consumers' end and not in any of the KESC's installation. The fault was, however, rectified by the KESC officials, he added.
Asked about the impact of short supply of water on the city, a KWSB official said that as the city had suffered a shortfall of around 35 million gallons of water on Sunday, the overall supply to the city will be affected.
However, the localities, whose supply would be affected badly, include Malir, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Federal B' Area, Buffer Zone, Shadman Town, Liaquatabad and Sharifabad, he added.
Besides, power failures, ranging between half-an-hour and one hour, at different local pumping stations, resulted in short supply of water in several city localities on Sunday.
According to the KWSB sources, all those localities hooked to the pumping stations set up at Lyari, Kharadar, Lea Market, Behar Colony, Muslimabad, LSR (Low Supply Reservoir), either received scant supply or went dry on Sunday in the wake of power failures.
Meanwhile, acute water shortage continued to persist in some parts of the city for the last several days owing to faulty water distribution system. The localities include Clifton's blocks, 2, 4 and 5, Federal B' Area's blocks, 14, 18 and 19; Kharadar, Bhimpura, Baghdadi's D D Chaudhry Road, Mehmoodabad and a number of sectors of Orangi, Baldia, North Karachi and Surjani townships.
Councillors of different affected union councils of Orangi and Baldia townships complained that they were getting the supply with a low pressure because a considerable quantity of water was being wasted due to a number of leaking pipelines.
A councillor of Orangi Town's UC No 9 complained that the KWSB had failed to plug leaking pipelines, despite many complaints.