At crossroads: Awful dispute ensues over offal dumping

District administrations and law enforcers at odds on first day of Eidul Azha

KARACHI: Offal dumping led to a dispute between the district administration in District Central’s North Karachi and the law enforcement agencies on Tuesday, the first day of Eidul Azha.

According to sources in the District Municipal Corporation (DMC) Central, after five days of deliberation with the law enforcement agencies, the administration was allowed to dig trenches near a hill in North Karachi. However, at the eleventh hour, the administration was barred from dumping the offal at the spot by the law enforcers on the first day of the Eidul Azha.

Requesting anonymity, an official of DMC Central told The Express Tribune that the DMC, which was already facing major financial crunches, had to bear a huge monetary loss after they were denied dumping offal at the mountain near North Karachi. “At the eleventh hour, we dug new trenches in the parks of North Karachi’s Sector 11-D,” said the official, adding that several offal were transported to Gutter Bagheecha on the first day of the Eid, which is a very far-flung area. To accomplish this, more labour and fuel had to be obtained.



A resident of North Karachi Sector 11-L, Syed Hasban, said that huge machines arrived all of a sudden on the first of Eid and started digging in the park in front of his house. He said that after a few hours, offal dumping began at the site, due to which the whole area was reeking. “We were happy that this time trenches were not dug in our area,” he said, adding that this happiness couldn’t last long.

On the other hand, Central deputy commissioner Captain (retd) Fariduddin Mustafa said that the administration was denied dumping offal at the spot over security threats. Denying that five meetings were held, he said that only one meeting took place with law enforcement agencies at his office regarding dumping of offal at the mountain. He added that when it comes to dumping millions of offal, such minor coordination issues are likely to take place.

Meanwhile, DMC Central’s newly-elected chairman, Rehan Hashmi, said that this time they preferred to dig trenches in less populated and remote areas to avoid exposing the residents to health hazards. “One can say that the situation this time was far better than that of last year,” he said, adding that the local community was also on board.

Nevertheless, residents of the area reported that the situation was not satisfactory. A resident of Gulberg, Yasir Raza Abidi, told The Express Tribune that roads near Tahir Villa Chowrangi were flooded with sewage. According to him, offal was lifted from the streets but the process was quite slow.

According to residents, several piles of animal entrails had accumulated near Masjid Farooq-e-Azam in North Nazimabad. Responding to that, Farid said that residents should understand that the time to respond to complaints regarding presence of offal was at least two hours.

On the other hand, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) municipal services senior director Masood Alam told The Express Tribune that 602,059 animal entrails were dumped on the first day of Eid. On the second day, 632,333 entrails were disposed of while over 0.5 million offal were dumped on the third day. These numbers, according to him, pertain to the six DMCs and the KMC.

Meanwhile, Karachi’s deputy mayor, Arshad Vohra, said while addressing a press conference on Thursday that they were supposed to confront a huge cleanliness operation on Eidul Azha just six days after getting powers.

According to him, 27 trenches were dug in the city and 16,000 labourers along with 4,000 vehicles were on board in the cleaning activity of the city. Now, he said, the process of fumigation will start throughout the city, in which 35 vehicles will take part in each district. He said that the KMC and all the DMCs are financially very week.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 16^th, 2016.