HYDERABAD: The one-man judicial commission appointed by the Supreme Court has directed the officials concerned to submit with it within seven days details of all schemes executed by the special initiative department (SDI) in the water and drainage sector.
The directive came when Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon informed the commission, headed
by retired Justice Amir Hani Muslim, that the SID was being de-notified and all its ongoing schemes would stand transferred to other departments.
Appearing before the commission, the chief secretary stated that the apex court’s order regarding the SID would be complied with.
The commission directed him to submit with it a copy of the notification regarding the winding up
Notices issued to 77 industries
of the SID. It also ordered that planning and development (P&D) board chairman Mohammad Waseem “shall provide details of schemes executed by SID with amounts allocated/utilised against each scheme inclusive of ongoing ones by SID in water and drainage sector”.
He was directed to submit such report within seven days.
Advocate Shahab Usto, whose petition had led to the formation of the judicial commission, stated that he was told that an amount of Rs5 to 6 billion was released by Sindh government for the installation of reverse osmosis (RO) plants to some companies, one of them known as Evergreen.
The commission, considering his contention, ordered that the point be placed before the commission by the P&D chairman, who was also directed to collect details regarding installation of meters at the ultra-filtration plants at the Quaid-i-Awam University of Engineering and Technology in Shaheed Benazirabad district and submit a report. Such report should contain details of allocated amount of projects, the department that executed the projects and the amount utilised to date, besides the operation and maintenance cost paid to M/s Pak Oasis.
Notices issued to 77 industries
The commission issued notices to 77 owners/chief executive officers (CEOs) of the industries for denying access to the magistrates accompanying Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) officials to inspect their treatment plants. The inspection was ordered by the commission.
The commission directed Jamal Mustafa Syed, chairman of the task force set up by the apex court, to sit with heads of civic agencies to ensure that solid waste and sewage were disposed of in Karachi without causing pollution.
He was also asked to prepare a working paper and submit the same with the commission within the next 15 days.
It directed the Karachi mayor, local government secretary, Karachi Water and Sewerage Board managing director and project directors to attend meetings with the task force chairman.
Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2018
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