Karachi will go short of around 130 million gallons of water on November 13, when annual maintenance at the Dhabeji Pumping Station brings a 14-hour power shutdown that will stop nine of the station’s 21 pumps. The Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation has warned residents across large parts of the city to store water in advance, because supply will fall to roughly 520 million gallons against the usual daily figure of about 650 million gallons.
The shutdown has been scheduled by K-Electric at the Dhabeji Grid Station, with electricity suspended from 10 in the morning until midnight. Dhabeji is the main pumping station that feeds Karachi, and the loss of nine pumps for most of the day will cut the volume reaching the city’s distribution network by about a fifth.
The areas in line for disruption cover much of the city. Landhi, Korangi, Malir, Shah Faisal, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Clifton, Saddar, Lyari, Jinnah, Chanesar, Nazimabad and Liaquatabad are all named, along with parts of North Karachi. Residents of Nazimabad and Gulberg Town will also face partial disruption. The Landhi and Sherpao hydrants, which many neighbourhoods rely on for tanker filling, will stay closed for the duration of the shutdown, so even the usual backup of buying water by tanker will be harder to arrange on the day.
The picture does not return to normal the moment the power comes back. Once electricity is restored at midnight, the Water Corporation will restart six of the nine affected pumps, but annual maintenance at the station will continue for another 22 hours after that. During this extended period, Landhi, Korangi, Malir and Shah Faisal will keep facing partial disruption. The utility has advised households to store enough water before the work begins and to use what they have carefully until the maintenance is finished, because the effects will be felt well into the following day.
For Karachi, a planned shutdown at Dhabeji is a familiar kind of warning. The station’s 21 pumps carry almost all of the water the city drinks, and whenever several of them stop together, the shortfall is measured in tens of millions of gallons. In September, a cable fault in the K-Electric system knocked out ten pumps and left the city short by around 100 million gallons. A similar breakdown in late June threatened to cut supply by about 75 million gallons a day. Each time, supply had to be restored in phases, and the utility warned it can take up to two days for the network to settle even after the pumps are running again.
The difference this time is that the shutdown is planned rather than caused by a fault, which gives residents a chance to prepare. The utility has published the timing in advance so households, hospitals and businesses can fill their tanks. The underlying problem is that Karachi’s water system has almost no slack, so any interruption at Dhabeji, planned or otherwise, translates almost immediately into dry taps somewhere in the city.
That lack of slack is the wider story behind a single day’s shortage. Karachi needs more than 1,200 million gallons of water a day, according to figures given to a National Assembly committee in September, but the city receives only about 650 million gallons. The gap of roughly 550 million gallons a day is why water arrives on rotation in many neighbourhoods and why private tankers have become a permanent part of life for households that can afford them. Around a third of the water pumped into the network never reaches a tap at all, lost through leaking pipes, theft and illegal hydrants, according to a newspaper investigation into the city’s losses.
The long-promised answer to that gap is the K-IV project, the Greater Karachi Water Supply Scheme, first conceived in 2002 and meant to bring an additional 260 million gallons a day to the city. First estimated at around Rs25 billion, the project is now costed at roughly Rs224 billion, and officials told a National Assembly committee in September that it is now expected to be completed by April 2029, even though the federal planning minister has publicly set a deadline of December 2026. The distribution lines needed to carry the extra water into the city, some 94 kilometres of large-diameter pipe, are themselves behind schedule.
None of that will be fixed by November 13, and the Water Corporation knows it. What it can do is give residents clear warning and a clear timetable, which is what it has done this time. Households in the affected areas should fill their storage tanks on November 12 and expect low pressure or no supply for much of November 13 and into the morning after.
A single planned shutdown, handled well, is a manageable inconvenience. But it is also a reminder of how much of Karachi’s daily life hangs on one pumping station. Until the long-delayed K-IV scheme finally delivers water to the city, every maintenance shutdown at Dhabeji will mean the same thing for millions of people: store what you can, use it carefully, and wait for the pumps to start again.
