'Tanker mafia siphons off 30% of Karachi's water'

The "tanker mafia" is pilfering up to 30 per cent of the city's water through illegal hydrants operating with the covert backing of influential political elements and a complicit bureaucracy, Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) chief Altaf Shakoor claimed on Saturday. He urged the chief justice of the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) to take his first suo motu notice on what he described as a critical public-interest crisis.

Shakoor said Karachi already suffers from a chronic water shortage as its officially required 1,200 million gallons per day (MGD) far outstrips the 550-600 MGD it actually receives. With no major new water projects added for decades and the city's population continuing to swell, the shortfall has become alarming.

He said the situation is worsened by rampant water pilferage through illegal hydrants, allowing the tanker mafia to profiteer from engineered scarcity.

He added that the city's decrepit water infrastructure compounds the crisis, with an estimated 45 per cent of water lost to leakages, broken pipelines and ageing systems. Pumping stations, he added, remain highly vulnerable to power outages that disrupt supply.

The PDP chief lamented the persistent delays plaguing the K-IV project, which was originally designed to add 650 MGD to Karachi's water supply.

Political wrangling, poor planning and design flaws have stalled the project, leaving the city without its most crucial water lifeline.

Shakoor also highlighted the unchecked extraction of groundwater across the metropolis, where industries and housing colonies operate private bore wells, causing rapid depletion of the aquifer.