ISLAMABAD: The civic body of Islamabad seems least bothered to contain the flow of sewage into the natural streams.

While the sewage treatment plant in the city is functioning at 20 per cent capacity, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has not been able to ensure that large institutions, private housing schemes and even the apartment blocks set up their own sewage treatment plants.

“We have a sewerage system starting from six inch pipelines at the household level which continues to increase at various levels. The largest drain network is the trunk main with more than four feet in diameter,” said Shahid Sohail, the member engineering. “But these trunks have been damaged at different points and cannot be repaired because they moved along two dozen natural streams. Besides, slums have been established on the banks of these streams.”

He said the dwellers of these katchi abadis not only have damaged some of the trunk mains during their own construction works but were also directly disposing their household waste into the streams.

An official of the enforcement department said, “Everything is possible, including clearing the land around the streams, but it needs the use of force which eventually becomes a political issue.”

Unlike many other cities of the country, Islamabad has a planned sewerage system and the network of four ‘main trunk’ pipelines culminates at the sewage treatment plant in Sector I-9/4.

Civic body fails to prevent slum dwellers from disposing of household waste in nullahs

The treatment plant has the capacity of treating 17 million gallons of sewage, as per the National Environment Quality Standards (NEQS)and the treated water would be flown into Nullah Leh. But due to the damaged sewerage system, only three to four million gallon sewage reached the plant. The rest ends up into the streams.

Not only the katchi abadis are throwing their untreated waste into the streams but also the residents of most of the houses along the waterways have installed direct pipeline connections into the nearby nullahs. Though illegal, the concerned department seems helpless to take action against the dwellers.

“We have taken notice of the situation and people are fined. Their connections are blocked but still they continue making direct connections into the streams,” said member environment Mustafain Kazmi. “But the main issue is that whenever water from the overflowing streams entered their houses in rainy seasons, these people start complaining that the CDA is not doing anything.”

It may be noted that apart from the mainland Islamabad, a large area, including E-11, G-13, G-14, housing societies in Zone IV and V such as Alipur, Tarlai etc., do not have a sewerage system. All the private housing societies in these areas were supposed to have sewerage treatment plants but with the passage of time the land allocated for this purpose was sold off.

“This is the responsibility of the planning department and the building control department,” the official in the enforcement department said. “We will act only after the files is forwarded to us.”

Published in Dawn February 1st, 2015

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