KARACHI, Jan 10: The outdated drainage system in the old city areas needs even light showers to collapse which not only disrupts civic life but also causes huge damage to streets and roads that generally serve as watercourses during the rainy season.

However, the relevant authorities have never given serious thought to it despite the repeated hue and cry of the inhabitants of Saddar and Lyari who ask for complete overhauling of the system.

Off and on the issue has been raised by the area people and resultantly huge funds have been earmarked for the removal of illegal structures raised over the storm-water drains and their cleaning on a regular basis. But the situation on ground paints an altogether different picture and a survey of drains in Lyari shows that most drains are choked and filled with garbage while the civic agencies have failed to clean them so far.

Residents said that the existing drainage system in the old city areas, particularly in Lyari and Saddar, was built during the British rule. It had almost collapsed now and its shortcomings got exposed every year during monsoon when the old city areas faced flood-like situation with all services disrupted and private and public property damaged, they observed.

They held civic agencies responsible for not taking effective measures to remove illegal constructions and clean storm-water drains in time. They pointed out that ill-planned constructions over the drains obstruct the natural storm-water flow into the river which may eventually result in any disaster. The drains had been virtually converted into garbage disposal dumps, they observed, arguing that the drainage system was not designed to handle the load of a population that had multiplied during the last some decades.

During the last monsoon, the obsolete system caused severe flooding in the area and paralysed the life completely. Almost all the settlements along the banks of Lyari River were inundated and people braved flood-like situation for days as civic agencies failed to drain out stagnant water.

Most of the drains in the locality could not be cleaned because of the illegally-constructed shops, markets, huts and buildings over the drains, according to the residents, who complained that open drains in the old city areas were being misused as solid waste disposal grounds. There was hardly any space left for storm-water flow as the drains had been covered with concrete structures, they said, criticising the builders and authorities concerned equally.

The residents expressed apprehension that the next monsoon would play havoc in the old city areas of Saddar and Lyari if immediate steps were not initiated to revamp the existing system.