Karachi is one of the biggest cities of the world and the biggest of Pakistan. Like all other metropolitan cities, it faces challenges of environmental pollution, traffic congestion, waste management, street crimes, high estate prices, etc. The population is increasing at a rapid pace because of immigrants coming to the city from all over the country in order to avail the earning opportunities.
Metropolitan cities require an extra attention of the government for the continually raising challenges. However, Karachi, despite being the provider of 90% of the province and 70% of the country’s revenue, is being devoid of any attention. Because of bad governance and corruption, the infrastructure of the city is on its way to continuous deterioration.
Broken roads, poor sewerage system, garbage along side the roads and corners, open gutter holes and sewers are the things we are habitual of seeing. There is a lack basic facilities such as health, education, public transport, water, electricity and gas.
The poor sewerage system causes a lot of damage to already wretched roads. During rainy season the sewers get choked and the filthy water overflows to roads and even in the houses. Several areas in the city don’t even need the rainy season to witness sewerage water overflow in their locality. After every few months the sewers get blocked and neighbourhood becomes a place of filth and foul smell. No government official comes for the rescue. The dwellers find the solution on their own, be it installing the new pipeline or fixing the older one.
There are several areas of the city where the provision of gas is totally disconnected. The gas supply in the city is gradually becoming shorter. In most of the areas there is no constant supply of gas but several hours of load shedding occurs.
Various areas of the city suffer from power outage of several hours. During the hot whether of summer with high humidity where the feel of temperature reaches to above 50 °C, power outage is a wrath. Several instances of death have been reported in the city due to the condition. Despite the unavailability of electricity, the bills keep on burning the pockets of the residents.
Due to opened potholes and sewers many people lose their lives. Last year, in our locality a man lost his wife and daughter in a sewer. They were not aware of the opened sewer in the area. There was a power outage and there was a water overflow due to rain. The man, driving the bike, couldn’t figure out the arrival of the sewer and they fell into it. He and his son were rescued but the ladies lost their lives.
If a road gets damaged or is dug up for construction work, it takes forever for the repair. Last year, the roadside in front of our house was dug up for installing some pipeline. It took one and a quarter year for the repair. Our area is directly linked to the main road and that’s how the repair work was delayed. The areas that are on the inner side face the worse.
One problem that we have been constantly facing in our locality since ever is the shortage of fresh water. It has been eleven years since I am here, government do not supply water to us but don’t forget to send the bills. Water is supplied once in a couple of months. It is not enough to meet the daily needs of inhabitants.
To tackle with the problem, we dug up a well initially to get the water from underground sources. After a couple of years, it dried.
After it a bore in the floor at 60 feet was done. It dried also. One after the other we got our floor bored five times. Whenever one dried, we dug up a newer and deeper. Currently, the bore in our home is 160 feet. The level of water has dropped significantly and if there remains lack of rainfall, the level is likely to drop more.
The water from the underground source is not drinkable. It is bitter in taste. For drinking, we either buy drinkable water or use the stored tap water in water tank.
The hard water has its negative effects on our skin and hair. Additionally, it shortens the lifespan of clothes washed in it. The efficiency of detergents and soaps is reduced. Besides, it damages water pipelines in the household.
Whenever our boring got dried we suffered a lot. There used to be a severe shortage of water. Even we would have to think before going to turlet.
In such circumstances, we ordered water tankers. A private tanker was too much expensive, so we used to order from government tanker service. It was significantly cheaper than the private ones, nevertheless, it couldn’t be ordered again until after 7 days of dispatch. Additionally, it would take three to five days to arrive after ordering.
Moreover, ordering the tanker from government service was in itself a tiring task. Within given time frame of 15 minutes in the morning it could be ordered through a mobile app. Several times, due to load on the app, the order couldn’t be placed. We kept on trying over and over again. At times, we succeeded. At other times we did not, and had to wait until the next day to place the order.
So, whether it was the private water tanker or the public tanker service both were equally burdensome in one way or the other.
As I mentioned before, the water level in our current boring is also going down, we have planned to construct a bigger water tank for water storage so that whenever there is the water supply in the area we may store more for the days of unavailability.
Since the last year, there is a more frequent water supply in our area. The water that used to be not available to us for more than a couple of months is now supplied to us after every two or three weeks. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that the supply would remain the same. Last month, the supply was made after four weeks.
Therefore, building a bigger water storage tank is in our priority list. As soon as we have the resources, we will go for it.
This post is my participation for Hl-featured contest week 125 edition 2.
Image created by me using Bing AI