Contaminated water claims more than 10,000 people annually in Karachi

Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), on Wednesday, revealed that in Karachi more than 10,000 people die every year because of renal infection caused by contaminated water.
A worldwide survey report on water borne diseases revealed that every third person had become a patient of Hepatitis B or C and Sindh province is the most affected by this chronic disease, while
Khyber Pakhtoonkhawa and Punjab provinces rank second and third respectively.
PCRWR conducted Technical Assessment Survey of water supply schemes in domains of 22 districts of Sindh, which summed up that the performance of these schemes in terms of providing water in an adequate quantity and of safe quality, is extremely poor.
The outcome of the survey has revealed that water supply schemes are providing plain pipe water for drinking purposes to meet household needs and for other multiple uses to an enumerated population of 11.716 million persons on 1247 surveyed water schemes.
The fact is that 58 people of the schemes are not functioning properly and as a result, nearly 47 percent of the total population is ignored by the water supply schemes.
More alarming situation is that 98 percent of the functional schemes are providing unsafe drinking water. Moreover, on province basis, the average water charges, per scheme, figure out to Rs two per month. Talking to APP, Chairman PCRWR Dr Aslam Tahir said lack of proper management, operation and maintenance of the water systems was one of the critical issues of the water supply schemes.
Overall, 75 percent of the total 718 non-functional schemes have been found as temporarily closed.
The Chairman said identified reasons for the temporary closure of schemes are financial problems, breakage of some important components of the water delivery and distribution system or non-functioning of pump, motor or transformer.
The survey result shows that 95 percent water sources of the functional schemes, are unfit for drinking purposes and microbiological contamination has been found in all unsafe water samples from functional schemes.
According to the survey, nine percent of the schemes are over 20 years old, 16 percent of the schemes are 20-25 years old, 28 percent schemes are between 15-20 years old, whereas 47 percent schemes are 10-15 years old.
The Chairman said most of the schemes have used G1 pipe for the distribution system, the useful life of which is less than 20 years. It necessitates a program of rehabilitation coupled with redesigning of water supply schemes in the district and the priority should be given to the older schemes.
These remedial works should be based on the estimation of present and future water requirement for the increasing population, he said.