Developed some six years ago in Mauza Alamdi Sura on city outskirts on Suraj Miani Road, Gulshan-I-Sakhi Sultan Colony has all the ingredients of a modern residential area. It has well-kept parks and green belts, roads, play grounds, a school, a boundary wall and round-the-clock security system.
Four or five tanneries were a blot on the face of the well-planned colony. The developers, however, managed to sell all the plots with a promise that tanneries would be shifted from here within a year.
People who wanted to live in a blend of rural and urban environment fell prey to the otherwise open atmosphere of the colony. Most of the ‘fortunate’ allotees were professionals like doctors, engineers, professors and officials who held senior posts in government agencies. Houses were built on almost all plots within no time anticipating even healthier environment with the packing of foul-smelling tanneries.
But not only the tanneries are functional, but owners of adjacent lands have also set up poultry farms in the vicinity which have added to the woes of colony residents.
Highly stinking chemicals used in the tanning process and foul-emitting poultry farms have turned the experience to live in the colony rather frightful dream. The loud squeaking sound of tanneries at nights to dry and flatten the animal skins also flatten the efforts of residents to take a sound sleep after a hectic day.
Residents have formed the welfare association to sort out their problems, but their collective voice have so far borne no fruits.
When contacted, DO (environment) Mian Khalid Mehmood admitted that the people of Sakhi Sultan Colony were living in sheer unhealthy environment. He said the environment protection agency had issued notices to tanners and poultry farm owners to shift to the industrial estate outside the city limits, respectively.
Welfare association president Iqbal Gardezi alleged that local EPA officials often lied that notices were served to violators as we had been hearing the same reply from them for the last six years.
He said though the mauza Alamdi Sura was the part of municipal limits, the corporation did not own it viz-a-viz execution of its duties regarding cleanliness and sanitation. But when it came to the taxes and approval of the building plan, the Multan Municipal Corporation and Multan Development Authority never spared the residents, he added.
A colony resident, Prof Farrukh Aziz Durrani, said the sub-soil water had highly been polluted with hazardous chemicals used in the tanning process and laboratory tests confirmed it.
He said he built the house in the colony after serving for 35 years in the Education department to live rest of his life in suburban location, but all his planning had met a sorry end.