KARACHI, June 7: Piles of garbage, dumped in open drains and along the river beds, and being openly burnt on roadsides, in streets and in parks, have become a common sight in Karachi, which clearly indicates a severe crisis being faced by the agencies and departments concerned responsible for collecting, managing and disposing of solid waste.

The situation is most serious in densely populated towns like Saddar, Keamari, Site and Lyari where garbage accumulation in the absence of effective disposal systems has become a health hazard.

Most of these towns lack proper facilities for collection and lifting of garbage, resulting in insanitation.

The municipal officials of these towns have always complained of shortage of funds, transportation and sanitary staff as some of the reasons for the system’s failure.

It is observed that most of the efforts by these agencies are focused on short-term initiatives.

Efforts had recently been made to privatize and introduce a mechanized sweeping system, but this could not produce the desired results. It is not known what happened of these initiatives.

Attempts had been made in 1994 as well to introduce a garbage train project. The fate of this project, too, is also not known.

One of the problems in congested towns of the city is that a lot of designated sites where garbage is dumped and disposed of have disappeared as the land mafia has built apartments and buildings on them.

A survey of Lyari, Saddar and Keamari towns shows that there is no trace of many such sites for the aforesaid reason.

Finding no place for proper dumping of garbage, the domestic, commercial and even hospital waste is dumped at the nearest street corner. Eventually, heaps of garbage have emerged at every street corner, aggravating the situation further.

Ironically, the sanitation staff does not collect garbage from these undesignated disposal spots, which have turned into a permanent nuisance for ordinary citizens.The city government as well as the town administrations have so far miserably failed to come up to the rescue of people, living in subhuman conditions in many parts of the city.

People of these areas have complained of the municipal authorities’ inefficiency and their indifferent attitude towards the intolerable unhygienic conditions.

They say that poor management, negligence and lethargy on the part of the sanitation staff has not only destroyed the environment and living conditions but has also contributed greatly to the spread of infectious diseases.

Meanwhile, the situation in the Lyari and Keamari towns is more disturbing mainly due to the shortage of sanitation staff there.

Health inspectors of the towns say that the situation can only improve if adequate staff is made available.

In Lyari Town, the haphazard construction of multi-storey buildings has further worsened the situation. The residents of these buildings throw their domestic waste into the streets, some dump them on the ground floors while most others throw their waste in the backstreets.

Every land in Lyari has several backstreets and a survey shows that almost all of them remain full of garbage since there is no proper arrangement for lift and dispose of the waste.

Some of the worst-hit areas of the town include the residential areas of Nawabad, Memon Society, parts of Darayabad, and parts of Baghdadi and Shah Union council. The living conditions in these areas have become very miserable.

The situation in Keamari Town is also no different, as it also shows a distressing picture, particularly of its localities situated along the riverside such as Mohammadi Colony and Mauripur Grex. There is absence of a garbage collection and disposal system.

People mostly allege that sanitary workers do not perform their duties and often remain absent. They say it is because many of them are engaged in private house jobs refuting the official claim that 60 per cent of garbage is being lifted regularly.

One community worker remarked that “they (sanitary workers) simply collect the garbage from one locality and get rid of it by disposing it of in another locality”.