No respite for Clifton, Defence as KWSB rejects request for more water

Karachi
The city’s water utility turned down a request of the Clifton Board Cantonment (CBC) on Monday to increase its quota from nine million gallons daily (mgd) to 20mgd, saying that the request could not be accepted in view of the acute water shortage the city was already facing.
The development came as bad news for the residents of Defence and Clifton, where water scarcity has become a serious crisis, with people unable to buy water from tankers even at exorbitant rates.
According to the quota fixed in 1998, the CBC should get nine million gallons daily, but the water it is being supplied with is much less than that.
A spokesman for the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board (KWSB) told The News that CBC officials met senior representatives of the water utility recently, and demanded an increase in the quota on the grounds that the population of the two neighbourhoods had increased.
KWSB Managing Director Hashim Raza Zaidi and other senior officials rejected the request, and said they could not supply 20mgd as the metropolis was already facing an acute water shortage.
CBC spokesman Amir Arab said the KWSB was supplying only 3.5mgd to 4mgd daily, and the board was providing water to residents through alternate sources.
“This promise of 9mgd was made by the KWSB 17 years ago. The posh localities are these days facing an acute water shortage because neither that promise has been kept nor the quota increased.”
Replying to a question, Arab said the CBC’s own tankers provided residents with water. He said the cantonment board had been requesting the water utility to increase the quota since long, and had written several requests, but to no avail.
CBC CEO Shahrome Safdar Khattak offered to repair KWSB machinery in return for the required water supply.
He said CBC Chairman Farrukh Waseem had also requested in vain an increase in the water quota.
Unrest among residents
The general secretary of the Association of Defence Residents, Asad Kizilbash, put the blame for the water crisis on the KWSB and the Defence House Authority, criticising them for not arranging a bulk supply.
He said the two organisations continued to undertake development projects, but there was no water in the KWSB lines. If plot owners did not build houses, they were charged non-utilisation fee, he added.
“Now residents get water through private tankers, and this has gone beyond their reach. Some who can afford are still purchasing water, though.”
Kizilbash said the DHA Cogen Power and Desalination Plant failed to produce even a single drop. He added that after paramilitary Rangers demolished illegal hydrants, operators of water tankers raised the prices.
“It is the prime responsibility of the DHA to provide water through lines, but it has failed to do so and continues to charge the development fee.”
In Phase VIII, development works were being undertaken, but no water was being supplied through lines to the area, he said.