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Unpaid dues: KWSB moves SHC against KESC
KARACHI: The dispute between Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) and Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) over the unpaid dues has turned worse as the latter has moved Sindh High Court (SHC) against KESC for persistant load shedding at water pumping stations, Geo News reported Saturday.
The KWSB authorities said that KESC should put an end to the misery as the citizens are suffering due to water shortage while the latter alleged that KWSB is neither following the court’s order nor realizes the difficulties faced by the citizens.
The petition against KESC was filed by Abrar Hussain Advocate in the SHC which stated that the load shedding carried out by the KESC at the pumping stations is the violation of basic human rights.
The petition further stated that water pressure decreases due to four-hour load shedding and it takes thirty hours to develop the pressure again while pipelines are also being affected due to back pressure attributed to load shedding.
Responding to this, the court issued notice to the MD KESC to submit his reply by Tuesday (tomorrow).
Water pumping stations continue to face up to four hours of power cuts daily owing to the persisting standoff between the KESC and KWSB over unpaid dues.
Karachi is facing a water shortage between 700 million gallons on a daily basis for the past couple of days as the power utility continues with its four-hour power outages at water pumping stations. The affected areas include Landhi, Korangi and Defence while water supply will be suspended in Gulshan-e-Iqbal from today onwards.
Regular water supply to different areas has been affected due to these power outages with the residents in the tail-end areas suffering the most, KWSB Managing-Director Qutubuddin Shaikh said.
Talks between the Sindh government and the power utility officials had broken down on Friday evening after KESC officials asked for 24 hours to consult the management over the demand to end power outages at pumping stations.
On November 20, the KESC had started four-hour power outages a day at all water pumping stations of the KWSB over payment default, warning the water utility of disconnecting the installations if the bills were not paid.
In the past few weeks, the power utility has served several notices to the KWSB for paying its share of dues amounting to Rs25 billion, failing which legal action would be taken according to the high court orders.
Courtesy www.geo.tv