DHA residents demand supply of tap water, end of tanker mafia

A number of residents of Defence Housing Authority (DHA) protested against the housing authority and the Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC) outside the Karachi Press Club on Friday.

The residents demanded water through pipelines and not through water tanks, for which, they said, they had had to pay heavy amounts. They held placards which said they would not give taxes until their demands were fully met.

The protesters chanted slogans “Give us water in water lines”, and demanded eliminating the tanker mafia. One of the residents held a placard on which ‘#DHACares’ was written, and it was also mentioned how an FIR was registered against protesting residents for raising slogans against the CBC, the DHA and state institutions and for barging into a building after the entire area was flooded during the monsoon rains in July last year.

The protesters demanded removing weapons and private guards and tents from all of the DHA roads. They further demanded that the DHA and the CBC should be held be accountable for allegedly laying faulty drainage in their neighborhood, which led to massive floods during the last monsoon rains, and which in turn resulted in losses of millions of rupees for residents.

The residents also called for an affective waste management system in their housing neighborhood. The protesters, who included men and women, demanded immediately replacing the old and faulty drainage system before the next monsoon season. They said there should not be any tax on the DHA residents before they were provided with basic civic amenities.

On December 30, 2020, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed, had directed the CBC and the Defence Housing Authority to work out a mechanism and ensure a supply of water to the DHA residents. It asked them to file a report in two weeks.

The CBC and DHA filed reports about the issues being faced with the provision of water to the residents, saying that the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board was not properly supplying water. The chief justice had stated that some people in the area were getting water through dedicated pipelines. The officials admitted that there were some dedicated lines.