Not a drop to drink: Sukkur residents without water for past four days

NSUSC failed to make alternative arrangements for annual closure of Sukkur Barrage canals.

SUKKUR: The residents of Sukkur are facing an acute shortage of potable water since the last four days as the off-taking canals of the Sukkur Barrage, which were its main source of water supply, have been closed for annual maintenance.

They blame the North Sindh Urban Services Corporation (NSUSC), which like previous years, failed to make alternative arrangements to cater to the city’s water requirement for the duration of the closure. Each year, all seven off-taking canals of the Sukkur Barrage are closed for a period of 15 days from January 6 to January 20, while all the water is released downstream. Like every year, the Sukkur Barrage’s chief engineer had written a letter to the utility, informing them about the planned closure of the canals. He had advised them to make arrangements before hand in order to facilitate the residents.



Since taking over the charge of sanitation, water supply and drainage from the Sukkur Municipal Corporation in January 2011, the NSUSC has constantly failed to make alternative arrangements on time and as a result, the citizens have to face an acute shortage of drinking water.

Consequently, NSUSC’s managing director and director operations had been removed on charges of mismanagement. Sukkur’s deputy commissioner had been given charge of the utility. With this change, the residents had been hopeful that the situation would be different this year. Their hopes were, however, thrashed when history repeated itself and the residents found themselves deprived of potable water.

Water is available at the right and left banks of the river. With the closure of the canals, the utility must shift the pipes from the right bank to the left to fill the supply tanks.  This costs a large sum of money and the arrangements are always made late.

Meanwhile, the citizens are fetching water from the hand pumps installed in the low lying areas of the city. Some have hired donkey carts to fetch water while others are seen transporting water cans on push carts.

For his part, Sukkur deputy commissioner Shahzad Tahir Thaheem, who is also looking after the charge of director operations of the NSUSC, told The Express Tribune that efforts were under way to restore supply of drinking water to the citizens. He expressed hope that the water supply will resume shortly.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 9^th, 2014.