KARACHI: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Monday directed all local bodies, including the KMC, KDA, water board, DMCs and solid waste management board, to dispose of stagnant water from different areas of the city and clean them irrespective of jurisdiction issue with coordinated efforts.

“This is our city and we all have to work together, with coordination and dedication and have to serve people without any discrimination of jurisdiction,” he said.

The chief minister was presiding over a meeting here at CM House which was attended by provincial ministers Saeed Ghani and Nasir Shah and Adviser Murtaza Wahab, Commissioner of Karachi Sohail Rajput, along with other relevant officials.

Mr Shah directed the commissioner to prepare an inventory of the dewatering machines, pumps, suction machines and such other machinery available to different local bodies and the water board so that they could be moved where needed.

‘I want Yousuf Goth to be cleared within the next few days and I’ll personally visit it again’

He said that all the local bodies and the PDMA worked hard to “restore” the city after the heavy downpour. “I have visited each and every area of the city when they were submerged and again to monitor their restoration and then visited restored areas,” he said and added that still parts of Kharadar, Yousuf Goth of Surjani Town and some streets had to be cleared.

Mr Shah directed the Karachi commissioner to get the entire area of Kharadar cleared by late night and report to him. “I want Yousuf Goth to be cleared within the next few days and I’ll personally visit it again,” he said.

The CM directed secretary works Imran Atta to repair all the portions of the road which have sunk on Club Road, turning from Sharea Faisal towards Rashid Minhas Road, a small portion of the flyover of Liaquatabad.

He directed the KMC to repair Korangi Causeway and the CM was told that the causeway had been restored and opened to traffic.

Mr Shah issued directives for opening all the inundated, or closed areas to traffic by removing water or garbage from there and in the second phase washing them.

DHA

The chief minister was told that the KWSB machinery was still working to dewater areas of Phase-VI of the DHA.

He directed the commissioner to help them with more machinery if needed.

K-Electric

The chief minister was told that the 12 feeders of K-Electric in the Defence area were non-functional till Monday afternoon; of them six had been made operational. The remaining six could not be made functional because water was stagnant in the basements of various bungalows in the DHA.

The chief minister directed the water board to talk to the CBC and help them if needed.

Mirpurkhas

The chief minister, after receiving news of heavy rain in Mirpurkhas division and in parts of Hyderabad division telephoned the deputy commissioners of Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Tharparkar, Badin and Sujawal and directed them to look after the people properly.

Mr Shah said that the people should be shifted from low-lying areas to safe places and food, water and medicines and other such items must be provided to the people to be shifted to camps.

Ashura procession security

Murad Ali Shah on Sunday morning joined the Ashura procession from Capri cinema, M.A. Jinnah Road, to the turning of Garden Road.

He reviewed the security of the route up to M.A Jinnah Road and in the evening took an aerial view of the procession with IGP Mushtaq Mahar.

The chief minister visited Command and Control Centre at Civic Centre where the IGP and his team briefed him on monitoring of the procession.

They also told him that they had installed cameras with the features of facial recognition.

The chief minister visited Kharadar which was inundated with rainwater. In his presence he got 20 machines installed there to clear the area.

The cleaning work was in progress till evening.

Mr Shah also visited the KE main grid station in DHA, where rainwater had gushed around the installation.

He provided them pumping machines to clear their grid station and their 27 sub-stations. The CM also visited the entire DHA Phase-IV area and installed heavy suction and pumping machines to dispose of stagnant water from the area.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2020