Water Shortage Hits Hyderabad After Annual Closure Of Canals

The water shortage for residential consumers has hit Hyderabad following the 15-day closure of canals off-taking from the Kotri Barrage for annual repair and maintenance.

HYDERABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Jan, 2019 ) :The water shortage for residential consumers has hit Hyderabad following the 15-day closure of canals off-taking from the Kotri Barrage for annual repair and maintenance.

Several localities, particularly the ones located in the tail-end region of the water supply networks, in City, Latifabad and Qasimabad talukas have reported the shortfall.The situation stands aggravated due to the reduced capacity of storage ponds of the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA).

Syed Mohsin Jaffri, an official of WASA, told the APP that the agency could store water for only 7 days whereas the closure was double the storage time.However, he added, the WASA could manage to supply the stored water for up to 12 days.

Besides the storage issue, the recurrent power outages and rehabilitation of the water supply lines was another cause of reduction in the water supply, he added.Jaffri told that on December 30, 2018, some lines of WASA also burst open which hampered supply of water to certain areas.According to him, the combined storage capacity of 4 filtration plants was 570 million gallons including 400 million gallons at the New Filtration Plant, 80 million gallons each at Hala Naka and Paretabad plants and 10 million gallons at Latifabad filtration plant.

He informed that the WASA's water supply network consisted of 40 supply pumping stations and the drainage network of 12 sewerage pumping stations.