Environmental pollution: SC gives one-month to complete sewage treatment plant

Sindh chief secretary told the bench that the federal government provided only 32 per cent of the promised amount

KARACHI:

The Supreme Court gave on Thursday one-month time to the federal and provincial governments to begin setting up plants in coastal areas around the city to treat sewage water draining into the sea.

The direction came after a three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali, took up the environmental pollution case on Wednesday at the apex court's Karachi Registry. During the hearing, Sindh chief secretary Muhammad Siddique Memon told the bench that the project faced financial constraints as the federal government was delaying the payment of funds.

Four years after the conception of the project, Memon told the bench that the federal government provided only 32 per cent of the promised amount. "The centre had vowed Rs2.6 billion for the treatment plants in 2005," he said. "However, in 2009, it transferred an amount of Rs829 million only."

After hearing Memon's statement, the chief justice said that both the governments were still indulging in blame game while hazardous effluents were being dumped in the sea openly.

The managing director of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, Misbahuddin Farid, told the bench that three sites have been provided to his department for the setting up of treatment plants. The bench directed him to submit his written reply. Concluding the hearing, the bench gave a month to the federal and provincial governments to set up the plant.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd, 2015.