KARACHI — Water supply to several major commercial and residential hubs across Karachi gradually resumed in phases on Monday following a grueling 22-hour power breakdown at the pivotal Dhabeji pumping station. According to Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC) spokesperson Abdul Qadir Shaikh, K-Electric successfully restored power supply to the facility at 7:20 AM on Monday, ending a prolonged outage that began early Sunday morning due to a severe cable fault. The infrastructure freeze caused a massive deficit of nearly 48 million gallons of water, heavily disrupting daily life across high-density neighborhoods including North Nazimabad, Nazimabad, Gulberg Town, New Karachi, Landhi, Korangi, and Scheme 33.
The crisis also triggered a sharp administrative blame-game between the water utility and the city’s power provider regarding the ownership of the infrastructure failure. While K-Electric initially downplayed the issue, claiming the fault was internal to the KWSC facility and that 19 out of 22 pumps were functioning normally, KWSC officials firmly hit back on Monday, asserting that resolving cable infrastructure faults remains the exclusive legal responsibility of the power distribution company. Local civic experts note that this is the latest in a chronic series of utility failures; identical power breakdowns hit the Hub and North East Karachi pumping stations over the preceding months, routinely depriving the metropolis of over 100 million gallons of water daily during peak summer demand.
