KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said on Sunday that ‘enemies of Karachi’ were plotting against his cleanliness campaign as they choked a 24-inch-diametre sewerage line with heavy stones and boulders so that overflowing sewage could inundate entire Quaidabad and Malir areas, including Sharea Faisal.

He directed the police to arrest all such people and send their photographs to him so that he could tweet to show their true faces to the people of Pakistan.

The chief minister issued this directive during a visit to parts of the metropolis to review the pace of the ongoing Clean My Karachi drive, which was launched a day before.

The water board removed heavy stones and boulders from a choked drain in Malir

Accompanied by ministers Saeed Ghani, Syed Nasir Shah, Murtaza Wahab and Commissioner Iftikhar Shahlwani, Local Government Secretary Roshan Shaikh, Karachi Water and Sewerage Board chief Asadullah Khan and others, the chief minister started his visit from Lyari.

The chief minister showed reporters heavy stones and boulders that choked a sewer in Malir.

“These are the [so-called] friends of Karachi and owner of the city,” he said in a taunt without naming those who choked the drain. “These people are enemies of Karachi and Karachiites, therefore, they are playing with them.”

Mr Shah said the KWSB found out that the drain was choked by “so-called owners and friends of Karachi” just to fail his campaign. “I am telling you loudly that my intentions are very clear, I am serving the people of this city and your conspiracies won’t work.”

Local Government Minister Nasir Shah told the chief minister that apart from tractors and trolleys, 212 dumpers were used in the cleanliness drive in which 1,263 workers took part. These dumpers made some 848 trips and transported 7,152 tonnes of garbage to temporary garbage transfer stations (GTS) set up in the city.

Earlier in Lyari the chief minister visited different localities and inspected ongoing development works of laying sewerage lines and construction of road in the Nayaabad area.

When he was going to the Lakri Gondal area to see a temporary GTS, he stopped at the office of the DIG-CIA. He called a policeman and gave him a message for the DIG to get his area cleaned.

During his visit to Machhar Colony, he found a KPT plot dumped with heaps of garbage. He directed the commissioner to take a photograph and remove the garbage and then take another photo and send them to KPT authorities with a letter that their work was being done by the Sindh government.

He also visited a landfill site near the Musharraf Colony turning.

After completing the visit of District West, the chief minister moved to Bhains Colony and on the way stopped at the Quaidabad bridge from where garbage was being lifted. The chief minister directed the DC-Malir to clean area under the bridge.

Plan to impose heavy fines on littering

The city administration is learnt to have moved a proposal to the home department to impose Section 144 of the criminal procedure code (CrPC) on littering, burning of garbage and throwing debris on streets and open places.

Well-placed sources told Dawn that the fine of Rs500 to Rs50,000 might be imposed on violators, who might also be jailed for littering after the imposition of Section 144.

They said that strict action would also be taken against the commuters who threw out trash on the streets and roads from their vehicles.

The sources said that Section 144 of the CrPC was already enforced on littering on the city beaches.

They said that the city administration was taking all possible measures to clean the city of garbage and the proposal to impose punishment, including fine and jail term, on littering was aimed at getting the city clean.

They said that the district administrations in the city had also prepared comprehensive plans to manage solid waste in their respective districts.

They said that District West, the largest district in the city comprising seven subdivisions on 291.44 kilometres with 52 union committees, was the worst affected region where backlog of up to 100,000 tonnes of garbage existed.

The district has seven subdivisions — Manghopir, Baldia, Oragni, SITE, Mominabad, Harbour and Mauripur — and it generates 1,800 to 2,000 tonnes of garbage daily which has been accumulating for the past five months when the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board terminated the garbage collection contract with a Chinese firm due to its poor performance.

Deputy Commissioner of West Fayyaz Alam Solangi told Dawn that a comprehensive garbage removal plan was prepared by the district administration.

In the first stage, he said, garbage would be collected from streets and roads by the district municipal corporation-West and transported to the GTS and in the second stage the SSWMB would move the garbage to landfill sites at Gond Pas and Jam Chakro for disposal.

He said that the district administration had also identified certain sore points where sold waste was present in abnormally large quantities. “These points include a decade-old informal landfill site near Bibi Hawa village in Baldia and Machhar Colony where a large amount of garbage is dumped,” he added.

The DC said that the district administration had recommended to the authorities concerned to consider the possibility of declaring the informal landfill site in Baldia as an official one.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2019