HYDERABAD: The judicial commission appointed by the Supreme Court on water quality and drainage in Sindh on Tuesday visited various storm-water drains of Karachi. City Mayor Wasim Akhtar accompanied retired apex court judge Amir Hani Muslim, who heads the commission. Chairman of Task Force Jamal Mustafa Syed, secretary of local government Ramzan Awan and others were also part of the team.

The commission observed that there were encroachments on the drains which got narrower at various points in the city.

The commission visited around three to four drains in five hours. The authorities were directed that drains should be de-silted as they were filled with garbage, municipal and solid waste.

Around 33 drains are controlled by the KMC and around 300 by remaining district municipal corporations (DMCs).

The commission noted that different structures were raised over the drains and at some point they run underneath the roads.

The commission asked the authorities that their de-silting should not be delayed any more.

Committee re-notified

The commission re-notified the central procurement committee of Sindh health department with the observation that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) induct any of its additional directors as member of the committee.

The order was passed by consent.

The committee’s terms of reference have been defined as preparing bidding documents, carrying out technical as well as financial evaluation of the bids, preparing evaluation report as provided in Rule 45, making recommendations for the award of contract to the competent authority, performing any other function ancillary and incidental to the above and monitoring of the procured medicines with regard to their quality and genuineness.

The commission had given serious observation about the committee which was dissolved earlier by the health department. It had also mentioned that previous committee was working properly as far as procurement of medicines was concerned by the health department.

The new committee is now headed by vice chancellor of the Dow University of Health Sciences Prof Dr Saeed Qureshi with representatives of Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences Jamshoro, Chandka Medical University Larkana, the Sindh health department and others as members. The chairman of NAB, order said, could induct any of its additional directors as member of the committee in order to ensure transparency in procurement process of medicines by the committee.

The secretary of health stated that the issue of technical committee may be taken up on March 22 separately.

The committee shall be authorised to have vigilance on distribution of the supply to different hospitals, including all health facilities and to generate compliance report on website for the public at large.

The commission also ordered that meeting of Jamshoro Thermal Power House board shall be convened within this month to address issues related to water logging.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2018