KARACHI: The Supreme Court-mandated commission on water and sanitation in Sindh on Monday again directed the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) to remove the debris and construction material from roads and footpaths in the province.

The head of the commission, retired Justice Amir Hani Muslim, directed the SBCA to file a compliance report within two weeks.

At the outset, the SBCA DG informed the commission that in compliance with its earlier orders, he had notified all the regional directors to ensure removal of debris and construction material from roads and footpaths.

The commission observed that such notifications might have been issued, but no substantial improvement was visible since the commission had visited Sukkur a few days back and found such material on roads and footpaths.

A SBCA regional director for Sukkur assured the commission that its orders would be implemented while the commission also asked the regional director of Hyderabad to ensure that such material would not be lying on roads and footpaths.

The commission, formed to implement the apex court’s orders regarding the provision of potable water and improving the worsening sanitation conditions in Sindh, told the SBCA director general to implement its orders regarding removal of construction material and debris across the province and file a compliance report within two weeks.

Judicial commission seeks compliance report within two weeks

During a previous hearing, the commission had expressed serious resentment with the Karachi Municipal Corporation for giving permission to dump construction material and debris on roads and streets and also barred the KMC and district municipal corporations from allowing temporary encroachments on any public space as defined by the apex court in a case related to hoardings.

Energy secretary told to energise schemes

The commission told the federal secretary for energy to issue directives to the officials concerned within the province to energise the water and sewerage schemes on priority basis since those projects had direct bearing on human life.

Justice Muslim observed that the water supply and sewerage schemes in the province were dependent on electricity and certain schemes were non-functional for want of power connections.

A list of such schemes has been provided by the department concerned to the heads of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company and Sukkur Electric Supply Company.

Water issues in East district

The deputy commissioner of Karachi East submitted a report regarding complaints about a shortage of water and theft in the district.

He contended that substantial complaints had been attended to and there were complaints which were being addressed. The commission handed over the report to its focal person, Syed Asif Hyder Shah, who is also the secretary for training management and research wing.

Water & sewerage issues in Mirpurkhas

The commission directed the Mirpurkhas deputy commissioner to send a report about improvement of cleaning of water supply and the AEN should provide technical support in the water supply and drainage scheme.

Local officials said that they would bring about improvement within two weeks as far as water supply was concerned and sought two months for progress in the sewerage system.

The commission said that those schemes should be scrutinised by the Public Health Engineering Department secretary and also to be executed by PHED.

It directed the Mirpurkhas XEN to depute an AEN to provide technical support after local officials said that they needed technical support in supply of water and sewerage system.

However, the officials complained that there were serious issues about cleaning drains because of encroachments.

The commission told the officials to file a proper application regarding removal of encroachments and thereafter it would direct the DC to remove the same after completion of formalities.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2018