Karachi has become the sixth-most water-stressed city in the world
KARACHI: Karachi is home to more than 20 million, but currently satisfies merely 50% of its total water requirement, according to officials from the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB). The city needs 1.1bn gallons of water daily but can only supply 550m gallons per day (MGD). Meanwhile, Karachi’s population growth rate of 4.5% per annum means that nearly a million newcomers, economic migrants, refugees and internally displaced people, enter the city every year, further depleting the already-limited water supply.
Moreover, getting tankers are expensive in this city. Ranging from Rs4,500 to Rs6,000, the payments add up when one has to have a tanker delivered every two weeks.
The problem is not just expenses, however. When water does reach citizens, there is no system to monitor real use or water waste. A “water tanker mafia” illegally punctures pipelines and siphons off water to sell at inflated rates on the black market, creating other problems of chronic corruption, mismanagement and poor governance.
Hence, besides the expenses of tankers—very often the quality of water received is not good either. Of course slums are worse off, but all areas are suffering in Karachi because of this unending problem of water in Karachi.
Karachi has become the sixth-most water-stressed city in the world. The question that arises, thus, is whether this bustling mega city will be able to supply enough water to meet the burgeoning population’s demand.
Shafa Khalid
Published in The Express Tribune, July 5th, 2017.
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