Rawalpindi - Tens of hundreds of residents are facing the problem of acute shortage of water in Adiala Road, Ali Town, Chungi Number 20, Mumtaz Market, Sadiq Town and Dhoke Haji Niaz Niaz Ali. 
Besides water shortage, the residents are also enduring continuous unannounced loadshedding by WAPDA.
Despite repeated requests by the residents with Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA), the concerned officials of the civic body have failed to resolve their genuine grievance.
On the other hand, private tankers’ owners are fleecing the residents by selling them water on very high rates. 
The residents, including Malik Nawaz, Adnan Bashir Raja, Shohaib Shah, Kamran Baba, Mustafa, Bilal, Misbah Farooq and Babar and Khalid Mahmood, while talking to The Nation on Wednesday said that the problem of water scarcity in their area is persisting for many years. They said though they have been provided with water connections by WASA yet water is not being supplied them. 
The matter has been brought into the notices of the concerned higher officials and other related staff of water section of WASA dozens of times. However, except giving assurances, they have failed to alleviate the miseries of the residents of the area, they said.
A large number of residents of Sadiq Town and Mumtaz Market staged a massive protest demonstration against water shortage and the supervisor of WASA outside Masjid Bahar-e-Madina, said Malik Nawaz. 
He added the citizens have not been paying the water bills as protest. “The tug of war between WASA and consumers is conflicting heavy loss to national exchequer,” said Misbah Farooq. He said due to non-provision of water by WASA, locals have to get water from tankers who are looting the residents by charging Rs1,500 to Rs2,500 per tanker.
Similarly, the residents of the area complained against worst loadshedding by WAPDA. They said the WAPDA often observes loadshedding at 1am every night. Moreover, the commercial units are utilising domestic meters for heavy electric appliances such as pipe factories, ice cream units and other businesses in residential areas.
They appealed Managing Director (MD) WASA Raja Shaukat and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) IESCO to pay attention towards the genuine problems of the residents of these areas.
When contacted, Umer, the spokesman of WASA, said available water is very less as compared to current demand. There are two major projects Chehan Dam water supply project and Kehkashan water supply scheme, he said adding that Chehan Dam project will be completed in next three years while Kehkashan scheme will be completed next year.