KARACHI, Nov 19: Various parts of the city, particularly those belonging to the former district east, went without water on all the three days of Eidul Azha as pumping of water to the city from two pumps of the Pipri pumping station remained suspended and also because of power failures at Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) vital installations such as the Dhabeji and the Gharo pumping stations.The hard-hit localities were Malir, Khokhrapar, Saudabad, Landhi, Shah Faisal Colony, Korangi, Quaidabad, Defence Housing Authority, Akhtar Colony, Qayyumabad, 9th Mile Karsaz and its adjacent areas.
The other parts of the city which either went without water or received a scant supply with low pressure include KDA Scheme-1, Bahadurabad, Adamjee Nagar, Mohamad Ali Society, Bangalore Town, different cooperative housing societies of Gulshan and Jamshed towns, Mehmoodabad, Manzoor Colony, Chanesar Goth and Karachi Administration Cooperative Housing Society.
KWSB officials said that at a time when the city had already been facing a shortfall of 13 million gallons of water from the Pipri pumping station since Friday of the past week, pumping of water continued to decrease during the Eid holidays because of outages at the Gharo and the Dhabeji pumping stations.
“Even on Friday, pumping of water to the city from the second phase of the Dhabeji pumping station remained suspended for four hours (from 11.40am to 3.40pm) due to a cable fault,” the officials said, adding that the two pumps of the Pipri pumping station which had gone out of order had further aggravated the water supply position of former district east in particular and of other localities in general.
The sources said that one of the pumps of the Pipri pumping station had gone out of order more than a week ago while another developed a fault at 4am on Thursday, causing a shortfall of 26mgd.
Describing the water supply situation of various localities of former district east as “alarming”, the sources said that the KWSB chief engineer (Bulk Water Supply) had already requested the KWSB chief engineer (Electrical and Mechanical) to rectify the faults developed in two pumps of the Pipri pumping station without any further loss of time as the district was already in the grip of an acute water shortage and any further delay in restoring the supply from the faulty pumps might create a law and order situation.
The sources said that a time when different localities such as KDA Scheme-1, Bahadurabad, Mehmoodabad, Manzoor Colony and Akhtar Colony, had already been experiencing a water shortage because of fetching of over 600,000 gallons of water daily from their pipeline by a hydrant set up recently on Dalmia road, the short supply of water from the Pipri and the Gharo pumping stations had further worsened the supply situation in these localities.According to the sources, Naval authorities recently set up a hydrant on Dalmia Road, near Bahria College by taking a six-inch diameter connection from a 48-inch diameter pipeline with which the above-mentioned localities are hooked to and hence the shortage.
“In fact, the Navy from this hydrant is supplying around 600,000 gallons of water daily through 50 bowzers, each having a capacity of 12,000 gallons, to its different installations,” they claimed.