Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) has decided to file a contempt of court petition against Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) for the loadshedding in the name of cable faults being carried out at its pumping stations despite exemption accorded to KWSB's pumping stations from load shedding by the Sindh High Court (SHC).
According to KWSB spokesman here on Sunday, the managing director of KWSB Misbahuddin Farid has directed the legal department to proceed against the KESC. He alleged the KESC has made it a habit for the last one and a half month to resort to hours long load shedding in the name of technical faults at its main pumping stations which created water shortage in the metropolis.
Above all, KESC is releasing misleading statements to the media showing that it was supplying uninterrupted power to the Board and lamenting that KWSB was equally responsible for water shortage.
The spokesman said that KWSB was a service organisation paying electricity tariff as commercial entity to KESC which has raised power tariff from Rs 4.20 per unit to Rs 17 per unit in the last five years. He said KWSB provides water at no profit no loss basis to its consumers and paying its bills regularly to KESC despite losses.
Giving details, he said that KWSB could not supply 320 million gallons per day (MGD) of water from its Dhabeji pumping station due to 70 hours of loadshedding. Similarly, it could not supply 310 MGD water from its Pipri station because of 48 hours load shedding and 120 MGD water from its North East of Karachi due to 40 hours load shedding. The spokesman said that due to 55 hours load shedding, KWSB could not supply 98 MGD of water from its Dhabeji pumping station and 105 MGD from its pumping station at Hub due to 22 hours load shedding.
He said that MD KWSB has advised KESC to give preference to public interest over profitability of the company and try to avoid power cut to KWSB pumping stations so that Karachiites can get required water for their use.