The residents of those sectors of the federal capital, which receive water supply through tubewells and turbines, have been facing severe water shortage because of the increased power loadshedding.

The Capital Development Authority’s water supply system, especially in the ‘G’, ‘H’ and ‘I’ sectors, has almost crumbled because of the increased power loadshedding. For this reason, tubewells are not working according to the requirement and at the same time pumps installed to lift water to overhead water tanks have also not been running to pump up enough water to maintain a steady, regular water supply to the residents of these sectors.

Muhammad Arsalan, a resident of G-9/1, said: “We are facing problems due to acute shortage of water in our sector. Whenever we lodge a complaint for water, the CDA officials present the excuse of extensive loadshedding.” He said loadshedding of electricity and acute water shortage in hot weather are adding to the miseries of residents of the capital, especially Sector G-9.

The residents of sectors I-8, I-9 and I-10 have complained that they have not received regular supply of water for the past many weeks and at times it is over three days that they get some water in their taps.

They also complained bitterly that their requests for water supply through water tankers are also not attended for many days and most of them alleged that they have to grease the palms of water tanker supply staff to get water.

CDA Chairman Farkhand Iqbal, when contacted, said that not only power loadshedding has badly affected the water supply schedule in these sectors but the underground water level has also depleted. Even tubewells, which work when the power supply is restored, have fallen short of their full capacity of pumping water.

“I am well aware of this crisis situation and we are doing our best to deal with it by deploying more tankers for water supply in these sectors. But even to fill these water tankers, we need power to run motors and again we are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the rush of complaints for water supply through water tankers,” the CDA chairman said.

The CDA chairman said that while the authority is striving hard to deal with this crisis situation citizens should also extend cooperation by using water carefully and take every possible measure to prevent wastage of water.

The chairman said that despite the fact that in this season a strict rationing of water is enforced to keep a steady and essentially enough water supply to most parts of Islamabad, which receive water from the single largest source of Simly water reservoir, he has directed the Water Wing to increase outflow from the treatment plant way beyond the in-flow of water into the reservoir from its tributaries.

He hoped that the monsoon rains would start on time and the situation would eventually improve. However, he conceded that even the monsoon rains would provide little relief to the residents of those sectors, which are receiving water through tubewells because that depends entirely on the duration of power supply to run tubewells and pumping motors.

While CDA Chairman Farkhand Iqbal conceded that there was a water crisis in these parts of the federal capital and the authority was doing its best to deal with the situation, the concerned officer in the Water Wing of the CDA made himself inaccessible and it was not possible to have the precise information as to how much water is being drawn into the water supply system in the ‘H’ and ‘I’ sectors and how many additional water tankers have been deployed to attend the ever-increasing number of requests for water supply through water tankers.