KARACHI: Sindh Minister for Information and Local Bodies Sharjeel Inam Memon has said the government is forming a water monitoring committee empowered to shut down illegal and legal hydrants and suspend inefficient officials.

The proposed committee would comprise two members each from PPP, MQM, PTI, PML-N, ANP and JI, one representative of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Karachi Trade & Industry and two journalists, he said.

The minister said at a press conference at his office here on Sunday after presiding over a high-level meeting of the officials of his departments that similar committees would be formed to tackle other issues like cleanliness.

He said the persistent water crisis would continue to irk Karachiites till completion of K-4 water scheme as the metropolis required a thousand million gallons daily while it got only 550 million gallons.

In reply to a question about encroachment of storm water drains, the minister said that 20 to 25 years old encroachment structures over storm water drains posed the biggest hurdle to cleaning the drains.

The government had now decided that notices would be served on all encroachers a month before launching an operation with the help of law enforcement agencies, he said.

The minister pointed out that in view of upcoming monsoon season work had been started to clean storm water drains three months ago and in this connection almost all drains had been cleared.

He regretted that the city produced 15,000 metric tonne garbage daily but only 50 per cent was being collected while the remainder was either thrown into

storm water drains or into sewerage lines or in side streets which ultimately made their way into the drains, causing chokes and overflows.

He said that almost all water storm drains including the Gujjar Nala which was the biggest storm water drain of Karachi were almost 70 to 80 per cent encroached as a result the 100 feet wide drain had shrunk to only five to 10 foot. Many structures had been built over the past 20 to 25 years, he said.

The minister said the meeting had decided to give them a month’s notice to remove encroachments through newspaper notices and after a month a fully fledged operation would be launched against the encroachment.

He dispelled the impression about the government’s involvement in the distribution of water and water hydrants in particular, saying it was the earnest desire of the government that all water including legally set up ones should be done away with but people of localities where water supply lines had not been laid yet resisted it.

The minister said that all district administrators and municipal commissioners including administrator Karachi would report daily to the minister and secretary of local bodies and secretary information about cleanliness drive in their respective areas and if any complaint was received about unclean areas and garbage dumps, action would be taken against the administrator concerned.

Mr Memon said that in view of expected monsoon rains, leaves of all employees of the KMC and TMCs had been cancelled and all administrators, municipal commissioners and other officials of water board would be present in their respective areas during Eid vacations and supervise the work of cleanliness.

The minister said the government had been working on a formula so that employees of the local bodies could also draw their salary like other employees of the Sindh government through AG Sindh and in this connection all employees would be registered with Nadra so that ghost employees could be checked.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2014