KARACHI: Ibad urges outsourcing sanitation in Karachi
KARACHI, Feb 27: The Sindh governor, Dr Ishratul Ibad, has stressed the need for an effective garbage lifting system in the city, and called for its outsourcing so that sanitary conditions could be improved in all the towns of the city.
He appreciated implementation of the system in certain parts of the Gulberg, Shah Faisal and Gulshan-i-Iqbal towns and asked other towns to follow suit. The governor was presiding over a high-level meeting at the Governor House with regard to solid waste management (SWM).
The meeting was attended by adviser on Local Government Waseem Akhtar, adviser Health Faisal Malik, chief secretary Mohammed Aslam Sanjrani, ACS Planning Ghulam Sarwar Khehro, DCO Fazlur Rehman and other senior officials.
A briefing was also made by the additional chief secretary, Local Government, Mohammed Saleem Khan, about details of solid waste management and presented recommendations in this regard of which the governor was highly appreciative.
Ibad pointed out that removal of garbage was an old and intricate problem, which called for immediate steps for its solution. He emphasized that cleanliness should be done on a daily basis, and this would be possible only when capacity for the same was also enhanced.
In this regard, he directed that keeping in mind the experiences gained in Karachi, similar steps should be taken in other areas of the province as well. He observed that because of carelessness and apathy, large dumps could be seen in certain areas.
Emphasis by the meeting participants was laid on first taking essential and pre-requisites steps like garbage transfer stations and landfill sites before outsourcing the garbage removal system. The governor directed the chief secretary to provide necessary cooperation and monitoring to the city government and concerned departments in this respect.
He also laid stressed on measures for proper disposal of hospital and industrial waste, and said the entire work should be carried out using modern machinery and methods in line with environmental conditions.
In his presentation, Mr Saleem briefed the meeting about the solid waste management system in Karachi, problems in the existing SWM system, efforts made in the past, the need for garbage transfer stations, case study regarding privatization of transportation of solid waste in Shah Faisal Town, and hospital waste management. He also put forth his recommendations.
He informed that at present 18 towns of Karachi had 543 refuse vans, out of which 453 were in use. He said an estimated 6,113 tons of garbage was generated in the city daily; about 5,057 tons of this was lifted, and 1,057 tons was not. Garbage lifting, he said, cost Rs1.08 million a day while Rs233 a day was spent on transportation. Some 600 tons of recyclable material daily was picked up by scavengers.
Mr Saleem said the recycling industry provided employment to more than 55,000 families and had an annual turnover of over Rs1.2 billion, adding that more than 1,000 recycling units were operative in the informal sector.
Regarding cantonment areas, Mr Saleem said that Clifton, Faisal, Malir and Korangi cantonments had 34 vehicles that collected an estimated 311 tons of garbage each day, and incurred a daily cost of Rs197,000 on sweeping and transportation.
Highlighting problems at the primary stage in the existing SWM system (from households to dustbins) he said these included poor attendance of sanitary workers, gradual decrease in the number of dustbins, haphazard accumulation of garbage on streets, in open spaces and drains, besides a large number of garbage containers lying at the workshop for repairs.
At the secondary stage (transportation from dustbins to landfill sites), he said problems included the out-of-order condition of 15 to 20 per cent garbage vans, location of landfill sites at long distances ranging from 10 to 70 km, and offloading of hardly 300 to 400 trips of garbage vehicles out of 1,500 trips daily at the landfill sites. He said there was no system of recording the trips of garbage vans.
At the final stage, he pointed out that there were only two landfill sites available at Jam Chakro near Surjani Town and Gondpass near Hub River Road, which were about 30 to 35 km from city centres. Besides, there were two unofficial sites at Rehri (Landhi) and Ibrahim Hyderi.
He gave a brief about the efforts made in the past including establishment of the Farooq Compost Plant and the garbage train, saying the system failed due to high charges levied by the railway authorities, provision of obsolete wagons and non-development of proper infrastructure for loading and unloading of garbage.
Mr Saleem gave a conceptual detail of a garbage transfer station (GTS) and the anticipated result after its installation. With regard to the private sector, he said it could be involved in the primary transportation of garbage from primary collection points to GTS; maintenance and operation of GTS; secondary transportation of garbage from GTS to landfill sites; or/and entrusting it with installation of garbage related plants to ensure maximum garbage dumping at landfill sites.
He informed that the city government had appointed consultants to design environment friendly GTS', adding that tenders were invited for setting up one model GTS on turnkey basis.
He said the concept clearance proposal for establishment of five GTS' at a total cost of Rs1,091.50 million had been cleared by the Sindh government. These stations would be established at Mewashah, Gulshan-i-Iqbal behind the Aziz Bhatti Park, North Karachi and Korangi.
Briefing about hospital waste, Mr Saleem informed that 2.7 tons of waste was generated by 200 hospitals having total bed strength of 9,000. It includes 540 kg hazardous waste and 2,160 kg non-hazardous waste. Besides hospitals there existed 1,379 health care units.
In all, he informed that 140 health care units were disposing of their waste through incineration plants run by the city government while the remaining units were disposing of their waste coupled with municipal waste, posing health hazards.
He said a major reason for this was non-registration of HCUs either with the health department or with the city government, and absence of EPA Sindh at gross roots level. - APP
