KARAK, April 23: People have been facing hardship for the past three days due to acute water shortage because the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) has disconnected power to government tube-wells throughout the Karak district. Pesco says the power supply has been cut to tube-wells of the district’s department of water and sanitation because it had defaulted on dues while the latter says it had made overpayment to the utility during the past two years.

All the government departments in the Karak district headquarters town faced a severe shortage of drinking water as they get water mainly from the TMA Karak tube-wells. The TMA owns only five tube-wells, which supply water by turn to different localities of the town.

A TMA official said the water supply situation had been made worse by excessive and long load-shedding in rural as well as urban parts of Karak. It had become unbearable for the people who went without water for the last three days, he added.

People have been forced to travel long distances to fetch water for their homes or hire water tankers at exorbitant rates to meet their daily requirements. A tanker containing at least 200 gallons of water costs between Rs250 and Rs500 depending on the distance to be covered.

The deputy district officer of water supply and sanitation department has written a letter to the district coordination officer to intervene in the matter, resolve the power dues’ issue and get electricity supply to tube-wells in the area restored.

He called for immediate action to “avoid a law and order situation”.

Pesco billing to the tune of Rs31.235 million has been reconciled up to March 2005, while during the same period a payment of Rs25.150 million has been made. As such, the remaining sum of Rs6.084 million will be paid on availability of funds in due course,” the letter reads.

It says that Rs140 million have already been paid to Pesco prior to July 2004; as such huge credit in favour of WS&S department prior to the same period is pending against Pesco, Karak.

Mr Hayatullah, a Pesco official, told this correspondent that power supply to about 27 tube-wells of the WS&S department had been disconnected. The action had been taken in view of huge power dues it owed to the utility, he said, adding that electricity to other government departments, excluding hospitals, would also be disconnected if the dues were not cleared immediately.

Officials said that the actual cause of power cut to tube-wells was that the police had refused to entertain a complaint of a Pesco superintendent regarding an illegal connection in the Karak town. This prompted the Pesco men to vent their anger against the public as they disconnected electricity to the water supply schemes, residents and elected representatives.