HYDERABAD: Justice Moha­mmad Iqbal Kalhoro, who heads the one-man judicial commission on water quality in Sindh, on Saturday expressed his displeasure over Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) managing director Masood Jumani’s argument regarding a short-term plan on preventing disposal of effluent into Phulelli Canal.

The judge grilled the Wasa chief and directed the Public Health Engineering (PHE) secretary that “in future, if any drainage scheme is initiated for disposal of drainage water it shall not be allowed to have outfall in any irrigation canal”.

The order said that till a proper alternative was in place, such drainage schemes should necessarily have a treatment plant as well.

After passing the order during its proceedings in Karachi, the commission put off the hearing till June 17.

Earlier, Wasa MD Jumani disagreed with the proposal submitted in the commission by Aijaz Qureshi, the executive engineer of the Kalri Baghar circle, regarding treatment of effluent at Darya Khan pumping station as a short-term plan. Mr Jumani argued that a Rs915 million Public Sector Development Plan (PSDP) scheme under the Hyderabad Development Package was under way and around Rs700m had already been spent on it. He said that the cost had been revised to Rs1,800m and the scheme was supposed to be completed within the next eight months.

Expressing his displeasure over Mr Jumani’s submission, Justice Kalhoro grilled the MD and observed that “Wasa is prolonging the matter unnecessarily”. Irrigation Secretary Jamal Mustafa Syed came to the rescue of the MD and said that there was some legal hitch involved in the matter, perhaps on the part of Wasa, which was executing a PSDP scheme. He said that Mr Qureshi’s short-term plan would cost Rs850m though, in his view, it was technically feasible.

Advocate General Zamir Ghumro interjected to assure the commission that Mr Qureshi’s proposal would be sorted out at highest level and that an implementation plan would be submitted to the commission within the next four to five days.

AG Ghumro also stated that he would submit a concrete proposal containing definite outlines for re-starting the remaining work on the Right Bank Outfall Drain-II (RBOD-II).

Federal Development Secretary Shoaib Siddiqui was also present to reply to queries of the judicial commission regarding the RBOD-II, as well as the S-III and CETPs (combined effluent treatment plants).

The Sindh AG sought time on the ground that the chief minister, chief secretary and relevant officials were busy in pre-budget meetings.

The irrigation secretary, who heads the task force appointed by the apex court, said that CETP Kotri had not been made fully functional due to power breakdowns.

SITE managing director Ghulam Mujtaba submitted to the commission that a generator would be installed at the said facility to cope with the outages. Thereafter, the said treatment plant would become fully functional, he added.

Justice Kalhoro said that let such report be submitted in the coming week and all steps be taken to ensure that all components of CETP Kotri were made functional without further delay.

J.M. Syed was also told to submit a report regarding the scheme being executed at each water hydrant. “The report shall also contain all necessary details with particular reference to the quantity of water being taken from each water hydrant and matters ancillary thereto and in case some anomaly is found therein by him, he being chairman shall take all necessary steps to remove them to ensure transparency,” said Justice Kalhoro.

The commission directed PHE deputy secretary Riaz Hussain Sahto to submit a report regarding water supply and drainage schemes launched in the past but were not yet completed; and cite reasons for their non-completion. He was also directed to explain the inordinate long phasing of schemes and reasons why the phasing of future schemes could not be shortened.

The local government secretary submitted a report regarding multistorey/high-rise buildings which was taken on record.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2017