The manner in which the present exercise is initiated shows that the past experiences has not been taken into account. It will be useful to review the situation to put into perspective the relevance as well as potential usefulness of privatization of such services.
According to conservative estimates, the total amount of waste generated in the city is over 7800 tonnes per day. This waste does not include the construction, electronic, industrial and hospital waste for which authentic statistics are not available. About 12 per cent of this waste is segregated and disposed at the household level. And 10 per cent is separated and disposed by the waste pickers. Five per cent is used for different operations in land reclamation, predominantly along the coastline of the city.
The other 33 per cent is disposed by the Town Municipal Administrations (TMAs) while an equal amount is dumped in natural drains, nullahs and creeks. In terms of composition, a sizable part of this waste comprises urban organic waste with low calorific value.
Recyclable items are largely separated at source or at the kundi where they are sold to junk dealers. There are over 400 units of recycling industrial units in the city which belong to informal status.
According to the studies done by an NGO, over 5500 households draw their livelihoods from the informal recycling industry. The city lacks properly designed transfer stations for interim storage, sorting and onward transfer of waste. As a result, informally designated garbage dumps can be found almost every where.
There is no scientifically designed sanitary landfill site for the safe and final disposal of waste. Most of garbage is dumped at Jam Chakro site near Surjani Town; Govind Pass (near Hub) and Mehran Town near Korangi. As no public health procedures are applied, open dumping causes enormous problems.
For instance, three children died in Surjani Town two years ago when authorities dumped the soil contaminated due to oil spill from Tasman spirit. Other public health hazards also loom large in the backdrop of a run down waste management system.
SWM has been a private municipal function that was dealt by relevant authorities. Historically, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) (now defunct) used to handle this function. After the KMC was restructured and District Municipal Corporations (DMCs) were formed, the responsibilities were divided.
DMCs looked after all the affairs related to collection and disposal while KMC restricted itself to management of dumping sites.
After the promulgation of Sindh Local Government Ordinance 2001, the SWM functions were categorized into the three tiers. Union council was made responsible for street sweeping and collection of waste from households to the lane/neighbourhood level; TMA was made responsible for lifting of waste and transference to the dumping site and CDGK was given the task of managing these sites, as well as overall coordination.
The performance of the previous regime in SWM sector was below satisfactory level. Low priority to the SWM sector, limited resources at the disposal of towns, lack of coordination amongst government departments and limited availability of trained staff were some of the short comings in this respect.
SWM was attempted for privatization in then previous formats of local government. In 1994, KMC contracted the waste collection to a private entrepreneur who had installed an imported plant to convert urban organic waste into compost (which is a form of plant food used for soil enrichment). However, due to various administrative and procedural reasons—largely unknown—, the plant closed down and the contract was prematurely terminated.
In 1998, DMC-Central (now defunct) awarded a contract of waste collection and disposal for North Karachi and Federal B Area. A private contracting firm was hired for the purpose. The contract ran into controversies very soon. Allegations and counter-allegations were traded between the two sides.
According to the contractor, he had to undergo heavy financial losses in the capital investments made for purchase of vehicles (trucks and other form of vehicles) and manpower. DMC-Central accused the contractor of poor performance.
In DMC-East (now defunct), an NGO,— Society for Environmental Awareness (SEA)— was invited to lift the organic waste from the site of Old Sabzi Mandi at University Road to notified points at Korangi for preparation of compost/fertilizer. Due to administrative delays and unsuitable location, the project could not materialize.
In Defence Housing Authority, a private organization has been active in lifting and disposing the waste to prescribed points. The secondary storage and disposal component of the service is entirely dismal.
At a local scale, an NGO,—Association for Protection of Environment (APE)— runs a project in Shah Rasool Colony and Lower Gizri to devise a waste collection system through the community means. It is linked up with the municipal network of Clifton Cantonment Board.
Most of these experiments have encountered different types of problems during their take off phase. While professional and managerial competence is a pre-requisite to success in each ease, the understanding and exposure of similar experiments done in the developing contexts are utmost relevant.
It is vital to know that the donor agencies, principally the World Bank, have been promoting the concept of private sector participation for improving the efficiency and level of eservice in a cost-effective manner. A number of formats have been tried which have met a varying degree of success. Several of them are relevant to Karachi also.
In most developing countries that the private sector operators are small in scale and capacity and are not able to handle all the aspects of a services themselves. They have to bear the load of taxes and duties on their equipment and accessories.
In order to remain profitable, they establish political linkages with officials to get better conditions in the contract. Cost recovery and financial fitness are two essential criteria for inducting private sector in a municipal system.
With the passage of time, the municipalities find it difficult to maintain large-scale sanitation infrastructure and a spread-out staff. The private sector is normally hired at lower costs but due to is compatible scale of operation, it generates an optimum level of efficiency.
While devising a system of formal privatization, the informal practices of picking, sorting and recycling should be kept into view. It is interesting to know that while we talk of privatization, the informal private sector has been doing its job for several decades. It not only maintains its own survival but also provides useful service to the city by reducing the waste volumes, generating some useful products and bye-products through recycling and creating avenues of employment for a vast variety of skilled and unskilled labour force.
According to studies, there are more than 100,000 labourers/ people in Karachi who are directly or indirectly involved with income generation activities related to waste on a part time or full time basis.
The key element of devising a management structure for private sector should be efficiency. Municipality tends to privatize SWM to lower the cost and improve on service. The private sector enters the system in order to earn profit by keeping an appropriate management. A proper blend of the two can result only when a realistic contract is reached.
At this stage, the contract should include terms and conditions that are manageable by the contractor. Capacity building of contractors is a crucial factor. At present, there are extremely few private enterprises that can attempt to manage the waste of Karachi. Skill development management training and site management are few essential ingredients where capacity building of potential contractors is utmost vital.
A crucial aspect in waste management is an appropriate system of monitoring and evaluation of private sector contractors which has several aspects. The first is the creation of a set of performance indicators. Frequency of sweeping, lifting of garbage and safe disposal to the dumping/transfer site, general cleanliness and an impact assessment on the health of citizens are some common indicators. While the enforcement of contract is the best and most appropriate aspect, the impact assessment by the users and beneficiaries is also vital.
Formats of monitoring should be carefully determined that must involve participation of users and beneficiaries. Another aspect is the system of lodging complaints and the follow up response from the service provider. In many developed countries this structure is fairly simple. Complaints are registered through phone calls and are attended within 24 hours. Such practices help in building up users’ confidence.
A foremost aspect is to make solid waste management as self-sustaining enterprise. Several aspects need to be considered to make the exercise realistic. Their livelihoods and modes of employment should be safeguarded.
Recyclers, middle agents, contractors of different scales and orientation, shopkeepers involved in commercial activities related to SWM all fall in these categories. Appropriate ways and means be worked out to rationalize their operation without disrupting the useful working chains that they develop for their operation in the market. Waste should be used to generate outputs that are essentially required in a society.
Organic waste may be utilized to prepare compost which remains in great demand in urban agriculture. Similarly waste of suitable calorific value can be used to generate energy. For organized disposal, sanitary landfill sites need to be developed where the waste can be disposed in a safe and environmentally-friendly manner.
Simple and contextually viable technology be employed by service providers. Ultra high and sophisticated machinery or orthodox manual modes are both incompatible with the local conditions.