THE Supreme Court-mandated commission formed in 2016 to look into Sindh’s water and sanitation issues had a gargantuan task. Not only did it have to identify the problems, it had to make recommendations and oversee their implementation. The Supreme Court has now dissolved the commission, while directing the provincial government to implement the body’s suggestions — included in its report submitted to the court in early 2018 — and file a compliance report within a month. One of the commission’s recommendations is that the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board conduct a fresh survey of all water supply and drainage schemes and prepare a master plan for water distribution and sanitation in the city. Other suggestions include, among many others, an oversight body to monitor the KWSB, an overhaul of the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency, a survey of industrial areas by the revamped Sepa, and establishment of appropriately located landfill sites across Sindh.

Official apathy and corruption in the government apparatus — the massive fraud that is the RO plant initiative is but one example — have led to a stage where water and sanitation issues in Sindh are directly responsible for a steep decline in the quality of life. One does not have to travel far in the country’s largest urban centre before the consequences of this criminal neglect become obvious. Drains and natural waterways choked with overflowing garbage, roads inundated with sewage water, etc are all part of the ‘Karachi experience’. The commission’s findings were nevertheless an eye-opener. For instance, it seems there are 750 points of confluence between raw sewage and freshwater bodies — turning the entire 8,000km-long provincial irrigation network into a conduit for faecal material and hazardous organisms. Around 2,000 rural water supply and drainage schemes were found to be dysfunctional largely due to bad governance and the local councils’ incapacity to operate them. None of the sewage treatment plants in Karachi were in working order. Therefore, while the government ostensibly spends billions of rupees annually on these schemes, the people are forced to consume contaminated water and endure unsanitary conditions, thus increasingly falling prey to various water-borne ailments eg hepatitis, typhoid, diarrhoea, etc. The commission’s recommendations have kick-started work to rectify some of the problems, but the Supreme Court must ensure that the Sindh government does not slip back into its old ways. Moreover, those responsible for the dire state of affairs should be held accountable for their crimes.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2020