Residents in Sukkur short of 7 million gallons of water

SUKKUR: Residents of New Pind, Old Sukkur, Darzi Mohalla and Agha Badruddin Colony protested against an ongoing shortage of drinking water outside the DCO Office on Wednesday. They said that they had not received water for the past one-and-a-half years and were forced to travel long distances to fetch water.

They also said that a large number of people had been forced to leave the city due to the scarce supply of drinking water.

“Life has become very difficult for us,” a resident said. “We get out of our houses early in the morning to start looking for water.”

“We have to go buy water. In the current times, it is a huge expense,” said a rickshaw owner, who added that the money he made from his job was not enough to sustain such expenses.

Sukkur Administrator Abdul Razzaq Junejo said, however, that the water shortage has largely been dealt with.

“Less than 10 per cent of the original water shortage issues still exist. There are only three neighbourhoods in New Pind protesting against a shortage of water. Out of these, the problems of two neighbourhoods have already been solved while the rest of the people’s problems will also be resolved soon,” Junejo said.

8 generators unused since time of purchase

Ten generators, worth Rs90 million, had been installed in Sukkur two years ago during former city nazim Naeem Siddiqui’s government to resolve the residents’ water and electricity problems by running the city on diesel worth Rs5.5 million per month. However, the district government is only provided with 600 litres of diesel, which can only run two of the generators.

“Some generators are running and some are not, because the Taluka Municipal Administration does not have enough funds to run all generators,” said Sindh water board in charge Machari Malik. “If all the generators run continuously, the water problems of the city will be solved.”

Residents of Sukkur need 16 million gallons of water every day but are provided with only nine million gallons of water. If all the generators are utilised, 1.2 million residents of Sukkur may no longer have to face a shortage of water, said Malik.

Junejo said that the Sindh chief minister had issued funds amounting to Rs8.5 million three days ago. “The generators are all working. These funds will be used for the maintenance of the generators,” said Junejo.

Residents said, however, that the generators had changed nothing over the past two years, and that their problems remained unaddressed.

“We desperately need water. People are dying, but the government has bought these generators which are just lying there. They should be run. This is very unfair,” a resident of Sukkur said.

“There is no one to question this [wastage]. They have bought these generators but no one knows where they are or if they are ever going to be used,” another resident observed.

“When they bought these generators two years ago, we were very happy that our water problems will finally be solved. It now seems unlikely that this will ever happen.”

Published in the Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2010.