SUKKUR: Retired Justice Amir Hani Muslim, head of the one-man Supreme Court-appointed commission on water quality in Sindh, expressed anger over supply of contaminated water to citizens of Jacobabad and uncleanliness at Shikarpur Civil Hospital during his visit to the two districts on Wednesday.

Justice Muslim visited a filter plant near Jacobabad and was visibly annoyed when he found out the plant was supplying contaminated water to citizens. Slow pace of work on mega water supply project launched in collaboration with USAID also irked the judge.

He asked director general of works department Masroor Ali Arbab about it and he shifted the blame to contractors for failure to complete the project in time. Besides, he said, laying of water supply lines up to peoples’ houses also created hiccups in the project, he said.

Justice Muslim asked whether they faced shortage of funds and the DG said there was no issue of funds because it was a USAID-funded project, the Sindh government was only to provide required machinery.

The judge directed officials to ensure completion of the project by November 2018 and ordered them to appear before the commission in Karachi along with relevant record, detailing reasons why the water supply scheme which was built at a cost of Rs1.5 billion during the Musharraf government, was not working.

Advocate Shahab Usto, whose petition was instrumental in the formation of the commission, told journalists that they had inspected the same project a year ago and found no progress on it since.

He said that contaminated water was being supplied to citizens and urged people not to cast votes again for the candidates who did not care for them and their families.

Since technical staff, officials and contractors were passing the buck over slow pace of work, they had been asked to appear before the commission along with relevant record in Karachi, he said.

In Thull town, Justice Muslim ordered Jacobabad deputy commissioner to launch inquiry into use of substandard material in work on water supply scheme for the town and submit his report.

He also ordered officials of irrigation department to stop release of sewage into a canal passing through the town. During his visit of the town, people made complaints to him about massive corruption in water supply scheme.

The judge was accompanied among others by secretary of public health engineering department Syed Asif Hyder Shah, secretary of irrigation Syed Jamal Mustafa Shah, director of local government department Qamar Baloch, SSP Sarfaraz Nawaz Shaikh and others.

SHIKARPUR: Earlier during his visit of Rai Bahadur Udhodas Tara Chand Civil Hospital here, Justice Muslim expressed annoyance at the level of insanitation at the healthcare facility.

He admonished Dr Khursheed Ahmed Qazi, medical superintendent, and asked him why incinerator was out of order.

The officer could not come up with a satisfactory answer.

He noticed a couple of government vehicles gathering rust on the hospital premises and directed District Health Officer Dr Zulfikar Ali Abro to write a letter to the health department high-ups and ask them to get rid of the vehicles through auction so that the state of cleanliness could be improved at the healthcare facility.

He found a 600kV generator sitting idle in a corner and directed DHO, MS and contractor to ensure the generator functioned adequately in future.

He directed the MS to get all faulty machines at the laboratory repaired so that they could be used to carry out tests and save poor people extra expenses.

Justice Muslim instructed chief municipal officer to release salaries to sanitation workers on time and remove white-collar sanitation staff from service if they did not want to do their job.

He asked Deputy Commissioner Syed Hassan Raza to immediately shift cattle pens from the city to cattle colony.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2018