Power supply suspended: Water crisis in Hyderabad as standoff continues

HYDERABAD:

As the standoff between the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) and the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) continues, parts of Hyderabad have started to face water shortage and drainage woes.

These shortages combined with crippling load-shedding led to several protests in different parts of the city on Thursday. Residents of Latifabad, Qasimabad and City tehsils complained of both the suspension of water supply and drainage problems.

Hesco started a disconnection drive of public-sector consumers after the federal water and power minister, Abid Sher Ali, asked for the recovery of Rs28 billion arrears from the provincial and federal governments. The Wasa has defaulted payments of Rs7.9 billion since July 2010.

According to Hesco commercial director Mehmood Qaimkhani, Wasa has not been paying dues along with the monthly average bill of around Rs185 million. The agency cut off 141 connections including 39 illegal ones on Wednesday.

However, Wasa managing director Saleemuddin, who is already pursuing a case against Hesco in the Sindh High Court, filed a contempt petition instantly and won a court stay order. On the SHC order, all the 102 legal connections were restored by Thursday morning. But the illegal connections, many of whom power the water supply and drainage pumping stations were not restored.

“Wasa has accepted in writing that it is using 39 illegal connections,” said Qaimkhani.

It was not immediately clear as to how Wasa will manage to run the closed pumping stations to resume water supply and drainage. Wasa’s managing director denied, however, that the agency is using any illegal power connections. Instead, he said, Hesco did not restore all of the severed connections, which is causing supply and drainage problems.

Wasa supplies up to 75 million per gallons per day. The SHC has fixed the hearing of the case on May 6.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2014.