KARACHI, Aug 20: Overflowing gutters, chocked drains, dilapidated sewerage system and such other problems are common in all towns of the metropolis, but the situation in its periphery is worse, particularly in those areas where the a sewerage system or other civic facilities are either non-existent or a dilapidated condition.
Karachi’s oldest settlement of Lyari is one such area where people have to endure stinking smell wafting from the worn out sewerage network for decades. Laid by British rulers, the network once was absolutely perfect for which they must be credited. However, it was not meant for a population of several millions, but a few thousand. Moreover, it has lived its life long ago.
Lyari Town is now the most populous town and residents of its certain areas have been living with the same old sewerage system which cannot at all cater to the needs of a huge population. Resultantly, the situation has turned horrible as the entire delivery system of civic facilities has almost collapsed. The current monsoon rains have aggravated the situation further and the affected people have been holding the civic agencies responsible for the multiplying problems they have been made to face.
Accusing the civic agencies of showing sheer neglect, community leaders say that although the problems are chronic these agencies had never bothered to address them seriously. They would not take prompt and appropriate measures to prevent a small problem becoming a crisis, say the leaders.
During a survey of the rain-hit areas of Lyari, they told this reporter that Lyari has an infrastructure built almost 100 years back whereas those of most other towns of the city were not older than 50 years. This century old infrastructure built for a few thousand people, has been bearing the load of several million people as the uncontrolled population growth has increased pressure. The plots measuring an average 40-60 square yards once had a ground floor occupied by a small family but now each of the plots has a multi-storey building housing scores of small and big families.
The haphazard and widespread construction, along with the population growth, has ultimately increased commercial, trade and other activities manifold. This has further multiplied the requirement of water, power and other utility services, besides health, education and sanitation facilities. “Our policy planners, elected representatives and bureaucrats seem less interested in taking all these facts into account while distributing funds and granting approval to development projects,” the community leaders said.
Residents of Lyari say that the recent rainfall has caused a total collapse of the civic system at the very outset. As a result, the sewage-mixed rainwater has been spilling all over the roads and streets and there is no say to flush it out.
Frequent power failures have added to the miseries of the affected families which are left with no choice but to drain out rainwater from their houses and streets on a self-help basis.
In Baghdadi, Saifi Lane and Ali Mohammad Mohalla (Kalri), youths had volunteered themselves to clear the clogged gutter lines to rid their neighbours of filthy stinking sewage that had entered their houses and devastated the environment of the localities.
An irate social worker criticised the civic agencies concerned for their indifferent attitude towards the poor people’s plight. The elected representatives of the area were equally responsible for the present messy conditions, he added.
He pointed out that the storm-water drains and nullahs had never been cleared of filth and garbage for two decades. He said that the stuffing had rendered these drains and nullahs worthless. The concerned civic agencies would have to dig out the old conduits and lay new pipelines higher than the level of storm-water drains so that rainwater and sewage could flow into the wider nullahs, he said.