Because only a section of the installed equipment is being used regularly, there’s a danger that the unutilized machinery will fall first into disrepair and then into ruin. And the plant even doesn’t have a generator, according to a well-placed source, while official documents show it has a fully operational one.
On Thursday Dawn visited the filtration plant — situated 15 kilometres from Sohrab Goth, and called the NEK Filtration Works. The buildings on the plant’s premises looked fine, but the devil was in the details.
The duty engineers — Khalid Meraj and Baqar Raza — initially insisted that everything was fine. They, however, later admitted that only chlorine was being injected into the treated water lines. Alum and sulphuric acid, supposed to be injected into the water regularly, were not being used at all.
Alum, according to the filtration manuals, coagulates impurities and helps in the filtration process. Sulphuric acid, on the other hand, kills bacteria and fungi which survive nominal doses of chlorine.
Sources say that water pumped to the plant from Dhabeji is known to contain traces of dangerous bacteria and fungi. That’s why it’s advisable that both alum and sulphuric acid are injected in the treated as well as untreated water.
Baqar Raza — an assistant executive engineer — claimed that alum and sulphuric acid were injected only during the rainy season. But since Karachi doesn’t receive too much rain, this doesn’t happen too often.
Therefore, the pumps that are run when alum and sulphuric acid are to be injected into the water, are in operation only for three to four days in a year.
In response to a question, the other assistant executive engineer — Khalid Meraj — said the plant didn’t have any bypass system. “In case someone suspects that we don’t treat water at all, let me clarify that we cannot bypass the filtration process.”
Answering a question whether the filter bed, made of sand, had eroded tremendously over the years, Mr Meraj said: “Your source is wrong. Had the sand filter bed depleted, the filtration process would have been seriously affected.
“That is, the quality of treated water would have gone from bad to worse. But, everything is okay until now,” he claimed.
Asked why most consumers said, from time to time, that they got contaminated water, Mr Meraj maintained: “The problem lies not at our end but in the distribution system. This system has grown very old and troublesome.”
Both he and Mr Raza admitted that they didn’t have a generator.”We have built a room for the generator but we have no generator. This means that as soon as we get the generator we can install it.”
When asked why they didn’t have a generator even though their plant had one on paper, the two engineers went mum. “We don’t want to say anything in this regard.”
Meanwhile, a source told Dawn that the NEK Filtration Unit was not the only one in the city which was only partly utilized. “It seems that in the senior officials’ eyes filtration of water is not a necessity but a luxury.
“That’s why they turn a blind eye towards this issue. And take it from me, all the filtration units cut corners. The water is never treated fully and properly.”