KARACHI: The Supreme Court-mandated commission on water and sanitation in Sindh on Tuesday directed the Landhi Association of Trade and Industry (LATI) to install pre-treatment plants within its industrial units in three months.

Head of the commission retired Justice Amir Hani Muslim said that if such plants had already been installed in the industries and were not functional, they should be made operational.

However, he directed the officials of LATI that the exercise of installing new pre-treatment plants or rehabilitating the existing ones should be completed within 90-day time and similarly any other requirement under the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) should also be complied with in two months.

The commission warned that if its directives were not complied with within the stipulated period the industrial units would be sealed.

The representatives of LATI along with owners of industries turned up before the commission and informed it that there were around 400 industrial units in the Landhi industrial area and complained that they were facing many problems, but the authorities concerned were not addressing them.

Justice Muslim directed the representatives of LATI to hold a meeting regarding their issues with focal person of the commission Asif Hyder Shah within three days and also asked the managing director of Karachi Water and Sewerage Board to hold a session with the officials of LATI to discuss the issues.

The commission said that as far as the advice on design and specifications of the proposed treatment plants/septic tanks for industries was concerned, Dr Ghulam Murtaza of Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, who is also part of the commission’s task force, would attend such meetings and offer guidelines on designs.

The commission made it clear to all the representatives of the industries that there would be no let-up on the issue of installing pre-treatment plants/septic tanks or rehabilitating the existing ones, as per technical requirements, and failure would perpetuate human sufferings.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2018