City sinking in water crisis

• Citizens agitated over power outages, water crisis, contaminated water
• Areas along the Metro Bus route face water shortage, polluted water
• WASA’s diesel-run generators without fuel as WASA officials allegedly sale out half the oil

While several parts of the metropolis face an acute water shortage, mainly owing to power outages leading to non-functioning tube-wells, many areas of the city are being supplied with dirty or ill-smelling water as water pipelines along the Metro Bus routes have been contaminated by adjacent sewage pipes. Furthermore, Pakistan Today has learnt that the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) has failed to provide adequate and clean supply of water to the citizens because the authority is facing shortage of funds to run diesel generators they have rented in the backdrop of electricity outages to run tube-wells.

The water crisis in the city is rising with each passing day. The areas including Misri Shah, Ravi Road, Ichra, Iqbal Town, Shadman, Samanabad, Kotlakhpat, the Walled City, Township and the areas along the Metro Bus route from Muslim Town Mor to Ravi Link Road are worst hit, facing 10 to 14 hours of water suspension while the other areas of Lahore are facing six to eight hours of water suspension.

Not so long ago, clean water was available at a 100-feet depth in the city. However, improper planning and misuse of water aquifer has lead to depletion of this natural resource and lowering of the water table; potable water is now available as deep as at 800 feet.

The persisting water shortage in the city suggests that WASA and other government department are doing little to calculate the use and availability of water to ensure its quality and sustainability.

Pakistan Today has learnt that a large number of water and sewage pipelines were not even in the documents of the controlling body. In year 2004, Jiacka, a Japanese company gave a large amount of aid to change all the city’s pipes to curb water contamination. But all the replaced pipes were made of cement and as the time passed these pipes became weak and allowed sewage water to mix with the water supply lines.

According to sources, the 344 WASA tube wells running on electricity are functioning only for six hours which reduced the water supply to the city to less than 20 percent. While out of 116 tube wells which run on diesel only 60 are functional while the remaining 56 were not working due to non-availability of diesel.

Residents of various areas of Lahore are facing hardships due to unannounced 12 to 18 hours of electricity load shedding in the City for the past few weeks. Due to unannounced load shedding, the non-availability of water supply in majority of city areas had become a routine matter and 10 to 12 hours water suspension had ruined the lives of Lahoris.

Yaseen Hayaat, a resident of Ichhra, talking to Pakistan Today said, “The water available at my house stinks. We cannot drink this water and many of the children in our area are being affected from different water born diseases.”

Faizan Qazi, a resident of College Road, said that he had been going to his office without taking a bath for the past three days because of load shedding and the non-availability of water. He said the government should take some pity on the people, who are becoming psychological patients due to the crisis.

Taking to Pakistan Today, a resident of Township said; “The water pipes supplying water to this area have been connected to the main pipe from the other end. We only get water when all the other pipes are full or overflowing.” He further said that if the other pipes were not full, there was no water for hours, adding that his area only received water from 10pm to midnight during the entire day.

Sources in WASA told Pakistan Today that there were around 460 water tube-wells of WASA in all the nine towns of the city and generators were installed on 116 of them. They revealed that in every budget of WASA, a huge amount was allocated for diesel to run the generators during electricity outages. Sources added that almost 60 percent fuel given for generators, had been sold to local oil agencies by the WASA officials instead of using it in generators and only 40 per cent fuel was available for the generators, which was being used during the load shedding hours.

However, top officials cited unannounced load shedding as reason for the chaos while their subordinates complained of irregular fuel supply for generators.

A tube-well operator, seeking anonymity, said the agency had fallen short of fuel. Moreover, the authorities have not paid attention to repairing out-of-order tube wells, leaving people in the lurch, he added. Fuel theft by officials has also been reported in the agency but the high-ups have never bothered to take action against those responsible.

When contacted WASA spokesman, Imtiaz Ghori said that almost all the generators were functional in the city and diesel was being provided without any delay. On the other hand, he also claimed that most of the generators were not given diesel due to alleged embezzlement by WASA officials.

Replying to a query regarding long water suspension, WASA officials simply denied it and said that the department was utilizing all its resources to ensure the continuous water supply in the city. He said that the department had been receiving complaints about irregular supply. However, he claimed that the agency had been looking into the matter. Imtiaz said load shedding had been hampering supply while fuel issue would be resolved soon.

About the fuel theft by officials, DCO Lahore had constituted different committees at XEN level to keep a check over the problem and a daily report of inspection of these tube wells is being forwarded to Secretary Housing and DCO.

WASA MD Mian Muhammad Abdullah and DCO Lahore Rizwan Mehboob were contacted a number of times but both were not available for comment.