MQM-P stages protest against water, power crises today

KARACHI: Dr Farooq Sattar has announced that his PIB Colony faction of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan will stage a demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club on Sunday (today) to protest against the city’s water and power crises.

Addressing a news conference outside his residence on Saturday, Sattar said he does not think that the K-IV Greater Karachi Bulk Water Supply Scheme will be completed even by 2019 because of the alleged incompetency of the authorities handling the project.

He said the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board cannot even control its own supply valves and pumping stations as most areas of the city have dried up, adding that Baldia Town in District West has not received water for the past three months.

“The population is increasing while there is no addition to the water supply,” he said, referring to the dramatic swelling of the city, both horizontally and vertically, in the past decade. “It seems that no planning is carried out in the city.”

Sattar said the government’s silence on these issues implies its enmity with Karachi because, he added, the city that pays the most taxes in the country is left without care. “The government has failed in ensuring fair distribution of water and power.”

He censured the K-Electric, the city’s sole power supplier, saying that the company has doubled its profits to Rs70 billion since 2016-17 but failed to ensure uninterrupted power supply.

He said the city’s people are suffering from electricity outages amid rising temperatures despite paying hefty bills and taxes. “For decades every government has claimed that they would end load-shedding, but in vain.”

Regarding the caretaker government to be formed in the coming months as the assemblies complete their five-year tenure, he said the names of former chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, economist Dr Hafeez Ahmed Pasha, former State Bank of Pakistan governor Dr Ishrat Husain and industrialist Abdul Razak Dawood have been proposed for caretaker prime minister.

On the subject of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s expected visit to Karachi today, Sattar said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz is isolating itself due to its approach in the current political scenario.