Islamabad, May 24 (IANS) Pakistan’s Karachi is facing a chronic water shortage, creating a situation where access to this basic necessity is increasingly determined by either personal connections or financial capacity.
Those with means often turn to the so-called tanker ‘mafia’, paying inflated rates for additional supply, while others struggle to secure the limited government-supplied water tankers available each day, a report said on Saturday.
“In areas still privileged to receive piped water, neighbours compete with each other to pull more than their fair share into their own water tanks. Meanwhile, the friendless and economically destitute must line up overnight at public pumps or ‘black market’ dealers stealing from water mains for a bucket or two for their daily use. It is a pitiable situation, made galling by the consistent lack of care shown by successive rulers and administrators of the city towards its long-suffering residents,” an editorial report in Pakistani daily Dawn detailed.
“With the onset of summer, the situation is expected to worsen considerably. And the city’s politicians have started preparing for the inevitable,” it added.
The report highlighted that Pakistani lawmakers from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Wednesday raised the issue of Karachi’s water shortage in the National Assembly, holding the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led Sindh government responsible for the delays in the completion of the K-IV water supply project.
While the federal minister for water resources assured that the federal government and Pakistan’s Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) contribution to K-IV would be completed within the current year, an MQM leader countered, saying that he feared the project may still not be completed by 2030.
“Interestingly, no credible solution seems to have been proposed or discussed during the session. Sadly, this is quite typical of the political leadership’s general response to the difficulties Karachiites routinely face. They drop a few headline-worthy quotes here and there, make empty promises, and then return to usual business,” the report noted.
“The script is rinsed and repeated year after year, to be put into play the moment the citizenry starts crying out in distress. This is admittedly a rather bleak view, but what else can be said? The progressively deteriorating state of the country’s commercial engine cannot be denied, and it seems Karachi is fated for worse unless its leaders and representatives can be brought to see some incentive in improving its state,” it added.
–IANS
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