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Persistent watershortage forcesSite to curtailproduction

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Besides being extremely torturous for the people of the residential areas of Karachi, acute water shortage in the Site industrial area has forced a large number of industrial units producing value-added goods to either curtail their production or close down.

Talking to Business Recorder, Zubair Motiwala, one of the members of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board and chairman of water and power committee of the Site Association, said on Friday that the KWSB kept its water supply to the Site area closed for four days in a month (March) forcing textile units to either close down or reduce production to a very low level. "On other days the water supply is just about three million gallons per day (MGD) and that too in a very erratic manner."

He said the only major export producing units were the textile units which made value-added goods and contributed more than 60 to 70 percent of the overall foreign exchange earnings of the country.

He said it had become customary with the KWSB that they would not entertain complaint of water shortage in any area of the city. "Generally they attribute the water shortage to power failure in the city or a fault in the pumping system.

Motiwala said if the water supply to the Site was kept as erratic as it was now, "we should forget meeting the export target, Chief Executive Gen. Pervez Msharraf is aiming at."

He said there was no actual shortage of water in Karachi. He, along with a team of the KWSB and members of the Site Association, had inspected the water supply system at the university reservoir and pumping system at the Board office North Nazimabad and found no water shortage. "It is the distribution which suffers from mismanagement and that suits the water tanker mafia. We have to identify the irritant."

KWSB sources said the distribution was being supervised by engineers who controlled the valve operators at Board Office Pumping Station. The valve operators in league with the tanker supply mafia were playing havoc with the lives of the people.

"Generally they have the support of their superiors in colluding with the private tanker suppliers who sell water to the Site as well as the thirsty of the city on exorbitant rates," they added.

Zubair Motiwala said, "We will have to identify the culprits."

He said, "Such a committee as the one I belong to is simply a hoax. The purpose of the committee can be served if its recommendations are implemented on priority basis."

A former chairman of the Site Association, Majyd Aziz said the persistent water shortage in the city had become intolerable "as neither the KWSB officials were prepared to mend their ways nor did the government want to redress the common man's problem."

He said the entire industrial activity was dependent on water, power and gas "and water and power shortage is badly hampering the industrial activity in the city."

He said that it would be wishful thinking to increase export of value-added (textile sector) without adequate supply of the essential raw material, water.

Majyd Aziz said water tanker was a more than Rs 500 million a month business and the income was distributed among all the interested parties. "This business in the most essential commodity cannot flourish without the connivance of those who control water supply."

The KWSB on the ninth consecutive day kept many parts of districts West, Central and South dry. "The pumping system did not work because of power failure," engineers concerned with water distribution said.