Water shortage: SC calls in city bosses over crisis

Jamaat-e-Islami stages sit-in outside mayor’s office

ISLAMABAD: Days after the mayor of the federal capital pointed out that the city was getting less than half of its required supply of water, Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar Monday took notice of the acute shortage of the essential commodity in the city and across the country.

Justice Nisar has summoned the city’s bosses on June 7 to explain the situation.



The court is also expected to subsequently take up the matter at its registries in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta, with notices issued to the Attorney General, Advocate General Islamabad, Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) secretary, Islamabad mayor, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) chief commissioner, and Capital Development Authority (CDA) chairman.

The court intervention comes on the heels of a worsening water shortage in parts of the capital where the CDA has resorted to rationing the supply of water, with each sector receiving water every alternate day. Not only water is being supplied once in 48 hours, the duration of supply has also been reduced. Last week, in a parliamentary panel, CDA Chairman Usman Bajwa had disclosed that against the daily demand of 120 million gallons, the capital was getting only around 59 million gallons.



CDA officials say the measure was necessitated owing to low water levels in the Simly Dam, which is the main source of water for the capital. Tube wells, the last of the trio of major water supply sources, have been in disrepair, with 157 of the 197 tube wells in the city out of order.

Officials told The Express Tribune that the Simly Dam has a total storage capacity of 2,305 cubic feet of water. Right now it only has 2,250 cubic feet of water in it, just 17 cubic feet above the dead level of 2,233 feet.

If the capital does not see any rain over the next 22 days, officials fear that the reservoir could hit the dead level, at which point, water supply from the dam will completely dry up.

With water crisis worsening by the day, residents often have little option but to rely on private water tankers who charge at will.

Protest

The shortage of water also forced the public on to the roads on Monday in protest.

Led by the Jamaat-e-Islami Islamabad, a sit-in against water shortages was staged outside the mayor’s office in Melody on Monday. The sit-in, led by former MNA Mian Muhammad Aslam, demanded that the civic agency repair the old pipelines and tube-wells where a large quantity of water is wasted on a daily basis.

They further demanded that the CDA install additional tube-wells in the residential areas along the green belts.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2018.