KARACHI: The Supreme Court-mandated commission on drinking water and drainage in Sindh on Saturday bemoaned lack of communication in provincial education department and expressed frustration that the department had completely ignored its earlier directives to provide safe and clean drinking water to students in all government schools.

The one-man commission headed by retried Justice Amir Hani Muslim regretted that the commission had issued orders several months ago but the department made no progress on their implementation and directed the department to do the needful within a month.

It expressed surprise over lack of communication in the department and said the incumbent secretary of education was unaware about a report which had been filed by his predecessor in May and the work plan submitted by the department from time to time which clearly mentioned installation in schools of ultraviolet disinfectants and reverse osmosis plants for water filtration.

But the present secretary suddenly brought into commission’s notice that the schools, which were to be provided safe and clean drinking water as per directives of the commission, were still being supplied unfiltered water, it said.

“It appears that the commission’s directives have been completely overlooked by the education department. The directives had clearly mentioned provision of safe and clean drinking water, which means water supply through filtration system,” it added.

The commission further observed that the then secretary of education Iqbal Durrani had been discussing the issue with the commission’s task force about installation of filters, ultraviolet disinfectants and RO plants and he had also submitted work plan in May which gave a timeline for installation of the filtration system. But now, a complete somersault had been made in defiance of the commission’s directives and in contradiction with the earlier work plan, it said.

“It is strange that the new incumbent has filed a statement without having to look at the previous work plan and statements submitted by its department,” it said.

Justice Muslim observed that the statement submitted by the present secretary Qazi Shahid Pervez on Jan 4 was in conflict with the earlier commitments made by the department and directed him to examine the record and direct the officials concerned in line with the earlier directives to comply with the previous work plan without further loss of time.

The commission granted one month time to complete the exercise and warned that in case of failure, the apex court might take up the matter against those responsible for delaying provision of safe water to students.

The tenure of the commission will come to an end on Jan 15. The apex court was informed last month that Justice Muslim was not willing to continue as the head of the commission and Chief Justice Main Saqib Nisar, who is also set to retire on Jan 17, had replied that a new head would be appointed if it was needed.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2019