Govt, civic authorities embroiled in blame games as toll rises

Karachi
As fatal bacterial infections continue to claim lives in the city, government departments keep passing the buck at each other for the responsibility of chlorinating the water supply and taking stapes to curb the spread of lethal infections.
On one hand, the health departments of the Sindh government and Karachi Metropolitan Corporation accuse the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) of not providing chlorinated water to citizens, the water board officials claim that the chemical “evaporates” before it reaches the consumer.
As many as 12 deaths have been reported from Naegleria fowleri so far this year in Karachi on account of unchlorinated water.
The brain-eating amoeba, found in freshwater, has claimed four lives in the month of July alone.
“Today I have written a letter to the KWSB’s managing director to request him to ensure that chlorine is added to water before it reaches the people since infected water is claiming the lives of citizens,” said director health KMC Dr Zafar Aijaz while talking to The News.
He said it was the responsibility of the KWSB to provide ‘chlorinated water’ to citizens. If in any case that wasn’t happening and chlorinated water was not reaching the consumers, he said, the KWSB should adopt measures to ensure the supply of safe water.
Answering a question, Dr Zafar Aijaz remarked that the KWSB authorities needed to monitor the water till it reached the end consumer. “If the level of chlorine in the water was less than the required amount or close to nil when the water reached households, the water board should establish boosting stations to maintain the required amount of chlorine,” he said.
According to health officials, there should be at least two parts per million (ppm) of chlorine in the water when it is released from pumping stations and it should be 0.5 ppm when it reached the households. However, chlorine has neither been detected in the water reservoirs at pumping stations nor at the end of taps.
The focal person of the Naegleria fowleri monitoring committee of Sindh health department also said that chlorine was not being added to water supply at pumping stations since in 95 percent of the samples collected by their officials, the presence of chemical had not been detected.
“The KWSB claims that it spends Rs13 million per month only for the purchase of chlorine for adding it to the water supply but our committee has found no evidence of chlorine being mixed at pumping stations of the KWSB,” said Dr Zafar Mehdi.
He said the Naegleria fowleri monitoring committee had been formed by the Sindh government after deaths began to be reported in the city by the deadly parasite, which remains in fresh water in the absence of chlorine as a disinfectant. The committee comprises officials and representatives of the health department, KMC, KWSB and experts and was tasked with monitoring the water being supplied to the people of the city.
“Hundreds of samples have been taken by the committee during the past many months, and daily sampling of water at pumping stations and different areas of the city has revealed that chlorine is not being added to water before supplying to citizens,” Dr Mehdi said.
KWSB without chlorine
Meanwhile, a source in the Sindh health department claimed that the company which supplied Sodium Hypochlorite to the KWSB had stopped doing so after the water board failed to pay bills pending for the past several months.
The source claimed that the KWSB purchased hundreds of kilograms of Sodium Hypochlorite from the chemical company but did not pay its bills amounting to hundreds of millions of rupees. He said the company has made it clear to the KWSB that it would resume supply once the water board clears its dues.
However, the KWSB officials vehemently insisted that chlorine was regularly added to water before being supplied to the people. At the same time, however, they also argued that the chemical evaporated from the water when it came in contact with air by the time it reached the end consumer.
Noor Muhammad Chohan, KWSB’s chief engineer and also a member of the Naegleria monitoring committee, rejected the allegations of government’s and KMC’s health departments and claimed that chlorine evaporated from water when water reached the overhead and underground tanks of households.
“The people should purchase chlorine tablets from the market and put them in their water tanks frequently since their storage facilities are improper and chlorine cannot remain in the water when it reaches the end user,” he advised.
He also rejected the report of 12 deaths, confirmed by the Naegleria fowleri committee, from the parasitic infection claiming that the brain-eating bacteria had claimed only seven or eight deaths in the entire province.
To a query, he said the KWSB regularly mixed chlorine at its pumping stations and they had surveyed all pumping stations of the KWSB in the city for the presence of chlorine and found that adequate amount of chlorine present in the water.