Power issues blamed for city’s water crisis

Karachi
City Commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqi has urged the Karachi Water and
Sewerage Board chief Qutubuddin Sheikh to work on a strategy to address the city’s crippling water shortage at the earliest.
In the meeting held earlier this week, Sheikh, in the presence of the commissioner and a K-Electric spokesman, said persistent power failures were the biggest obstacle in providing uninterrupted water supply to Karachi.
He claimed that the water supply from Dhabeji Pumpimg Station takes 25 hours to reach Karachi due to power outages.
Insinuating that the water crisis will further deepen, he said there are 22 water pumps for the city, but refrained to tell the media how many pumps functioning.
At present, 120 million gallons of drinking water is being supplied to Karachi from River Indus, whereas, two water plants situated at Dhabeji pumping station – having the capacity of daily water supply of 25 to 35 million gallons – are out of order since the past one month. According to sources, due to low capacity of pumps the water supply provided to Karachi is drastically low.
Meanwhile the Commissioner Karachi said Pipri pumping stations are being repaired these days and it would take at least 15 days to for its functional services. He admitted that the distribution and management is the biggest problem of the KWSB which he would be now focusing on.