The dispute between the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) and Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) over the unpaid dues has turned worse as the former has moved Sindh High Court (SHC) against the KESC for persistent load shedding at water pumping stations.
The KWSB authorities said that KESC should put an end to the misery as the citizens are suffering due to water shortage while the latter alleged that KWSB is neither following the court’s order nor realising the difficulties faced by the citizens.
The petition against KESC was filed by Advocate Abrar Hussain in the SHC which stated that the load shedding carried out by the KESC at the pumping stations is the violation of basic human rights.
The petition further stated that water pressure decreases due to four-hour load shedding and it takes thirty hours to develop the pressure again, while pipelines are also being affected due to back pressure attributed to load shedding.
Responding to this, the court issued notice to the KESC MD to submit his reply today (Tuesday).
Water pumping stations continue to face up-to four hours of power cuts daily owing to the persisting standoff between the KESC and KWSB over unpaid dues.
Karachi is facing a water shortage of 700 million gallons on daily basis for the past couple of days. The affected areas include Landhi, Korangi and Defence while water supply will be suspended in Gulshan-e-Iqbal from today onwards.
Regular water supply to different areas has been affected due to these power outages with the residents in the tail-end areas suffering the most, KWSB Managing-Director Qutubuddin Shaikh said.
Talks between the Sindh government and the power utility officials had broken down on Friday evening after KESC officials asked for 24 hours to consult the management over the demand to end power outages at pumping stations.
On November 20, the KESC had started four-hour power outages a day at all water pumping stations of the KWSB over payment default, warning that the water utility of disconnecting the installations, if the bills were not paid.
In the past few weeks, the power utility has served several notices to the KWSB for paying its share of dues amounting to Rs 25 billion, failing to which will result in legal action by the high court orders.
