BADIN, Oct 22: A fairly large number of people of the district and its adjoining areas suffer from hepatitis, skin diseases, cholera and gastroenteritis, mainly caused by highly contaminated water of Phulleli canal, which is the major source of the city’s water needs.

Phulleli water being supplied to the district from Hyderabad has become unfit for human consumption due to excessive discharge of municipal and industrial waste into the canals carrying water to this area. Still, more than 1.4 million people of the district are forced to use this water.

Sewage from various drains, waste of poultry and cattle farms located along both the banks of the canal and wastage of government and private hospitals of the area are also released into the canal, sources claim.

Phulleli canal, which has seen its good days and used to be considered amongst the most beautiful canals of Sindh, has reduced to a big nullah whose water has become highly toxic for humans as well as livestock and crops.

Forty main sewers of Hyderabad city release sewage directly into Phulleli canal, besides runoff from more than 1,000 Dhobi Ghaats (washing factories) and some 500 cattle pens.

About 12 plastic factories in Hyderabad also release effluent into the canal.

Sewage of Matli, Tando Muhammad Khan, Talhar and dozens of other towns and villages located on the canal’s bank also falls into the canal.

People in the tail-end areas, particularly union councils Serani, Bhugra Memon, Ahmed Raju, Kadhan, Lawari Sharif, Abdullah Shah and Pangrio are the worst hit. Majority of them suffer from skin diseases, hepatitis, cholera, gastroenteritis and other waterborne diseases due to use of highly contaminated water of Phulleli and other canals.

Leaders of opinion of the district have expressed grave concern over the deteriorating situation and said the rulers were acting like silent spectators, watching callously lives of thousands of people ebbing away.

They said that Badin District Nazim Anwar Halepoto and nazims of Hyderabad and Tando Muhammad Khan districts had decided at a meeting that the release of untreated municipal and industrial waste into the canal would be banned and its water would be made fit for human consumption, but the decision had yet to be implemented.

—PPI