KARACHI, Oct 22: Residents of Manghopir’s Baloch Goth gheraoed (besieged) on Tuesday the offices of Orangi Town Administration to express their anger against the stoppage of water supply to their locality for the past 20 days.
Residents of Baloch Goth, who had assembled in front of Orangi Town’s Office, to apprise the Nazim and the Naib Nazim of the Town of their lingering water shortage problem and the indifferent attitude of the KWSB’s officials concerned to the solution of the problem, burnt tyres and raised slogans against the KWSB.
Traffic on the main road, where the Orangi Town Administration’s offices are situated, remained disrupted from 9am to 12:30pm.
The angry crowd dispersed peacefully only after the Naib Nazim of Orangi Town, Feroz, assured them that he, with residents of Baloch Goth and other affected sectors of Orangi, would hold a demonstration outside the city Naib Nazim’s Secretariat on Wednesday to bring their water shortage problem to the notice of the city government.
Various parts of the former district South, including three major hospitals, also went without water on Tuesday because of the KWSB’s plan of diverting water from these localities to the water-starved townships of the former district West.
The KWSB has resorted to water rationing. It has been keeping some localities of the city dry once in a week on rotation basis for diverting the Indus water to the sprawling townships of Orangi, Baldia, North Karachi, Surjani and parts of the SITE industrial area after their supply from the Hub source totally stopped.
However, residents of Orangi Town, who has been experiencing an acute shortage of water for the past 10 days, said they did not get water even on the occasion of Shab-i-Barat.
The localities and hospitals which went dry on Tuesday included Clifton, Gizri, Delhi Colony, Punjab Colony, Shireen Jinnah Colony, Bhutta Village, Naval Dockyard, NORE-1 and GE Army installation, the JPMC, NICH and National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases.
Taking undue advantage of water shortage, owners of private water tankers did a roaring business on Tuesday in the water-starved localities. They charged Rs500-Rs600 a tanker.
The increase in the movement of tankers on main roads, particularly those in the vicinity of both private and the KWSB’s hydrants, became slippery due tankers’ leaking valves. A large number of potholes were already there on these roads, inconveniencing motorists.
WATER HOLIDAY: There will be no water supply on Wednesday to the Old City area, Garden East, Garden West, Soldier Bazaar, Saddar, Shikarpur Colony, Cosmopolitan Society and parts of Lyari.