MQM announces province-wide protests against water crisis

Karachi
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) will organise a stream of peaceful public protests against “artificial scarcity” of water Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas, Nawabshah and other cities from May 22 to call the attention of the provincial government toward the pressing water shortage.
This was announced by coordination committee member Syed Haider Abbas Rizvi during a press conference at the Khursheed Begum Secretariat on Wednesday.
He said the purpose of the protest rallies would be to bring the attention of Sindh government to resolve the artificial shortage of water in Sindh, especially Karachi.
He said the MQM in its capacity as a political force had been struggling to provide sufficient water to the people of Karachi for the past eight years. He said at least 1,000 million gallons of water were required by the city when only 400 million gallon per day was supplied while there were also problems in its distribution.
He said there were more than 160 illegal hydrants in Karachi which supplied water via tankers which charged between Rs5,000 and Rs12,000.
Kunwar Naveed Jamil, also a member of the coordination committee, said MQM parliamentarians had called on the Sindh chief minister and requested him to spare some attention for the water crisis in the province. He said the delegation has stressed that a basic necessity should not be politicised.
He claimed that there had never been a water crisis when the MQM had been in the municipal government.
Opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly, Khwaja Izhar-ul-Hassan said the MQM had presented an adjournment motion in the Sindh Assembly on the ongoing water crisis in Sindh.
He said the month of Ramzan was approaching fast and water crisis threatened to worsen with time.

KWSB’s limited resources
The financial crunch is affecting the performance of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, making it difficult to ensure the water supply the city needs, our correspondent adds.
KWSB Managing Director Hashim Raza Zaidi said that various organisations owed the water utility billions of rupees in terms of water bills pending for many years.
He was talking to a delegation of the Pakistan Tanneries Association, which called on him here. The delegation informed Zaidi that despite timely payments the industrial areas were not getting an uninterrupted water supply.
The KWSB MD told the delegation about the water shortage and said that after the K-IV project was completed the water supply would improve to all areas.
PPI adds: The spokesperson for the water utility said an electricity breakdown occurred at the Dhabeji pumping house for seven hours on Wednesday, depriving the city of 15 million gallons.
The electricity breakdown occurred at K2 Feeder No. 5 at 8:05am and continued till 3:15pm due to which water could not be provided from two pumping stations.
This way the benefit of 22mgd from the repaired pump (No. 1 of the NEK pumping house), which started providing water on Wednesday could not be felt, he said.
The spokesman said that due to suspension of electricity, the water shortage persisted; however, the affected areas of District Central were provided with water through 980 free water tankers. The recent measures had improved the water provision situation by up to 80 percent.