RAHIM YAR KHAN, Jan 8: An estimated 10,000 people in the city are suffering from various diseases caused by pollution of different factories operating here in violation of health safety standards.

Most of the factories have emerged here in the last two decades thanks to rapid industrialisation which has made the residents’ life a nuisance. Before 1975, only a small population of Mud Darbari area was present to the northwest of the city’s main railway track and this area was considered beyond the city limits. Then the Lever Brothers Pakistan, the Abbasia Textile Mills and some ginning factories were set up across the railway track and the locality came to be known as factory area.

In the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s regime, a housing scheme for low-income people was decided to be established on Shahbazpur Road opposite Mud Darbari and the then housing minister, Rais Shabbir Ahmad, inaugurated the scheme on Dec 6, 1976. The then chairman of the municipal committee was responsible for allowing the scheme in the Factory Area.

Subsequently, the low-income scheme No 1 named Gulshan-i-Usman was developed in no time and many private residential colonies, Husainabad, Islamia Colony, Qaddafi Colony, Haji Ahmad Colony, Khwaja Colony, Tareen Colony, Pathanistan, Lateefabad, Shafi Town and Hameed Town, started appearing one after another.

Side by side with the residential societies’ growth, many factories, including those of ginning, soap, oil, flour mills, and powerlooms were established from 1976 to 1990. Now the Factory Area has many residential localities, including Gulshan-i-Usman, having a population of 100,000. Two important union councils of the city, 37-H and 38-I, fall in the area.

Many cotton factories and mills are now operational in the vicinity of the two union councils, which are spreading pollution hazardous to human health. A survey conducted by Dawn revealed that at least 10 per cent of the factory area’s population is suffering from chronic cough, influenza, chest diseases, dust allergy, asthma and TB. Some 46 people, including children and labourers, have died owing to cotton pollution in these areas.

Several families have shifted due to pollution and those residing here have to travel with masks on their faces and using other preventive measures.

Sheikh Ahmad, a resident of Gulshan-i-Usman, told this correspondent that during the cotton ginning season from November to January, my asthmatic wife has to shift to her daughter’s house in another area of the city as her ailment got worse.

Another resident of the housing scheme, Muhammad Yaqoob said he had been using inhaler for the last seven years since he had been living in this area.

Many other residents said cotton particles gathered at the rooftops of their houses which caused irritation. Even the washed clothes gave a dirty look owing to pollution.

In 2002, the people of these areas established an NGO - Green Peace Social Welfare Services - to lift their voice against the issue. Among other efforts, it organised a seminar against environmental pollution in 2004 in Rahim Yar Khan and also organised a walk from Chowk Pathansitan to Gulshan-i-Usman in 2005 in response to which Punjab Environment Protection Director Dr Shagufta Shahjahan and director environment Naseemur Rehman visited the city on Dec 14, 2005 and held an open forum.

They issued notices to the cotton ginning factory owners to take measures to control pollution, otherwise they will be fined Rs1 million, besides facing cancellation of licences and registration of cases.

Some factory owners, including Khwaja Muhammad Illyas, Haji Arshadul Haq and Sheikh Salahuddin, assured the environment officials that they would soon install the latest pollution controlling equipment in their factories but all the pledges remained unfulfilled.

According to the latest information, only one ginning factory has installed a dust-control plant and the remaining continue to play havoc with the public health.

Last month, former provincial environment minister Makhdoom Ashfaq Ahmad, who is currently the minister for human rights, said those cotton ginning factory owners who violated the agreement would be brought to book.

Dr Masood, a known ENT surgeon who heads the Pakistan Medical Association’s local chapter, told Dawn that micro particles of cotton and its dust caused many diseases of lungs, respiratory tract, nose and throat, besides many kinds of allergy.

He said the government should be alive to the situation as it had provided land for a residential colony for industrial workers close to Gulshan-i-Usman.