HYDERABAD, Dec 17: The Environmental Protection Agency has taken serious notice of pollution in KB Feeder water and asked the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology and Sindh University to conduct analysis of samples from the feeder.

The EPA secretary Shujaat Ali Qarni presided over a meeting which was attended by Kotri Association of Trade and Industry representatives, Kotri taluka Nazim, officials of the MUET, SU, Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences and irrigation department at the KATI office in Kotri on Tuesday.

The Nazim was invited to the meeting to inform him that effluent of 10 residential areas of Kotri was being discharged into the Kalri Baghar Feeder.

Mr Qarni, who is also the environment and alternate energy secretary, expressed concern that toxic and chemical water was being discharged into the feeder which provided water for human consumption to areas of Kotri and parts of Karachi.

The taluka Nazim informed him that funds were required to establish a system so that effluent could be disposed of in hilly areas instead of the KB Feeder.

The EPA secretary asked the Nazim to send him a proposal and said he would talk to the secretary for local bodies for the funds.

He asked the representatives of the Site, KATI and universities to give suggestions for the establishment of effluent treatment plants.

A toxic water treatment plant has been overdue in the Kotri industrial area because of the direct discharge of toxic water and chemicals in the KB Feeder.

Earlier, researchers Manzoor Ahmad and Irshad Ahmad Bohyo were assigned to monitor the quality of water in the feeder for six months to determine parameters of water and examine different aspects of the Kotri industrial area but they were not provided with funds by the MUET, SU and KATI as promised.

The EPA secretary said chemical and microbiological analysis of samples from the KB Feeder was essential for accurate, effective and sustainable designs of treatment plants.

He said the KATI would financially assist the MUET to carry out the study.

He also asked the Site executive engineer to design a treatment plant in the light of test reports in the shortest possible time.