Giving deadlines: SC orders master plan to be devised for new oil terminal

Commissioner states problems being faced in shifting the oil terminal from Shireen Jinnah Colony

KARACHI: The Supreme Court directed on Tuesday the authorities to devise a master plan for the Zulfikarabad Oil Terminal within two months, taking all stakeholders on board.

A two-member bench, comprising justices Amir Hani Muslim and Sarmad Jalal Osmany, issued the directions at the apex court's Karachi Registry after commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui submitted his report regarding the problems being faced by his department in shifting the oil terminal.

This shifting of the oil terminal from Shireen Jinnah Colony to the outskirts of the city has been a long-running saga. The case, taken up in 2012, was initially a letter to the then top judge of the country, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, by a resident of Clifton, Shagufta Bibi, who lived close to the vicinity where the oil terminal is currently situated.

Bibi wrote to Justice Chaudhry that the oil terminal had made the lives of Clifton residents miserable as the continuous flow of the heavy vehicles did not only cause nuisance but also increased the vulnerability to deadly accidents. Justice Chaudhry turned the letter into a petition and, ever since, it has been formally heard with other identical applications amalgamated into it.

The biggest issue was that the tankers still had to come to Keamari port to be filled with oil, the report added. The Zulfikarabad Oil Terminal, measuring 150 acres, is an alternative site for the new station of the tankers. However, it has yet to be made operational.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 2^nd, 2015.