Sindh Local Government Minister, Saeed Ghani, has said that no union committee or town municipal corporation in Karachi possesses the authority to allow any private service provider to collect waste on a door-to-door basis in their jurisdiction as permissions issued to this effect are illegal.
Sindh Local Government Minister stated this while responding to the queries of the concerned lawmakers during the question hour of the Sindh Assembly’s session on Monday.
Answering the queries of the legislators, the Local Government Minister said the private service providers involved in the lifting of garbage in Karachi had assumed the shape of a mafia as they posed a serious civic problem in the city.
He said that these private persons sorted out the municipal waste after its collection to retrieve precious items while the rest of the trash was carelessly disposed of in the stormwater drains in the city.
Ghani informed the house that he had put forth the suggestion that a system should be developed for door-to-door waste collection in the city with the involvement of the relevant union committee. He said launching such a waste-lifting system would also generate financial resources for the UCs. He said the private persons involved in door-to-door waste collection should be prevented from this work.
He suggested that courts should be established in future to enforce the laws related to the functions of the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) in the city.
He informed the concerned lawmakers that waste disposal work had improved in Karachi since the SSWMB had started functioning but more had to be done on this front.
The Local Government Minister also informed the house that work had been in progress to build four out of five garbage transfer stations (GTS) the SSWMB had to construct in the city on a scientific basis to fully take care of the environmental conditions of the surrounding areas. He said the work on the Sohrab Goth GTS was yet to commence due to a land-related issue.
Ghani told the legislators that work had been started to expand the capacity of the existing Hub canal from 70 million gallons daily of water to 100 MGD supply of water to the city. He said that another project had been launched to build a new canal to bring an additional 100 MGD of water from Hub Dam to Karachi.
The Local Government Minister said that work had been in progress simultaneously on four different components of the K-IV bulk water supply project as this scheme is likely to be commissioned by April 2027.
Ghani informed the house that Rs 14 billion would be required to complete the S-III sewage treatment project as the Sindh government had allocated Rs three billion for the project in the current year. He said that at present the project had been merely treating 35 MGD of wastewater before its disposal into the sea instead of its total 180 MGD treatment capacity.
Answering another question, Ghani informed the house that numerous development schemes having billions of rupees cost to build the sewerage system had been completed in District Central of Karachi in the past four years. He conceded that problems related to malfunctioning of the sewerage system had emerged on inner city streets following monsoon rains not just in District Central but in the entire Karachi. He said that in the first phase the damaged main roads in Karachi were being repaired as reviving the sewerage system beneath them would help restore the inner streets in Karachi.