Over 30m gallons of water not supplied to city due to power cut

More than 30 million gallons of water could not be supplied to various areas of Karachi on Saturday due to a prolonged power breakdown at the North East Karachi (NEK) pumping station of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB), according to a statement issued by the board.

Due to the power breakdown, which occurred on Saturday morning, NEK’s K2 plant stopped working due to which water supply to Peoples Colony, Railway Society, North Nazimabad, Buffer Zone, Federal B Area and other adjoining areas was halted. Water also could not be supplied to the Scheme 33, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Gulistan-e-Jauhar and Scout Colony areas.

“The water supply from K2 plant was suspended due to a power breakdown by K-Electric [KE] at 7am,” the KWSB statement read. It further read it would take up to three days for the water supply situation to return to normalcy.

KE’s response

The KE, however, claimed that the power cut was caused by a local fault at the NEK pumping station which was resolved on a priority basis.

Responding to the KWSB’s statement, a KE spokesperson said the power utility continued to provide uninterrupted power supply to all the KWSB’s strategic locations, including the pumping stations at Dhabeji, Gharo and Pipri.

“KE ensures seamless power supply to all strategic installations of KWSB besides extending all possible technical support and maintaining close coordination with KWSB teams round the clock.”

The power utility claimed that as soon as it received the information about a local fault at the NEK pumping station, it mobilised its teams to restore the power supply at the station in a timely manner.

The spokesperson said the KE teams also periodically conducted surveys at Dhabeji and other strategic installations of the KWSB to ensure that they had access to power. The spokesperson added that all the KWSB's strategic installations were also exempt from load-shedding in the greater interest of the people of Karachi, despite the outstanding dues of around Rs32 billion that were yet to be received by the power utility.