Nuisance: Animal entrails all over Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: The newly-installed local government representatives seemingly failed to meet the challenge of keeping Hyderabad clean during Eidul Azha, with offal of sacrificial animals emitting a stinking nuisance in the neighbourhoods.

Piles of offal thrown over the non-designated garbage dumps in residential colonies, streets and even main roads remained a ubiquitous sight during the three days.

Hyderabad’s three urban talukas - City, Latifabad and Qasimabad - are divided in two local government bodies. The Hyderabad Metropolitan Corporation (HMC) comprises the former two talukas, which also happen to have a high population, while Qasimabad Municipal Committee (QMC) administrates the latter.

“They couldn’t even clean the dump on Station Road, which is at a distance of 100 metres or so from Baldia’s [HMC] office,” Zaheer Shaikh, who introduced himself as a local resident, bewailed.

Residents of different localities, which fall under the municipalities, had similar complaints.

Acknowledging the complaints, HMC Mayor Syed Tayyab Hussain insisted that he personally supervised round-the-clock garbage- and offal-lifting and disposal operation during the three days. “We faced a shortage of resources, manpower and transport,” he said. “But still I tried to manage by hiring the contractual staff and private vehicles.” According to him, more than 100,000 offal have been thrown in the dumps.

By Thursday evening, he claimed, over 70,000 had been lifted and thrown at a dumping site near Chand village in Halanaka area. “By Friday, the citizens will not find offal anywhere,” he assured.

Hussain complained that 10 days before he was elected the mayor of the HMC, the Sindh government drastically slashed the fuel budget of the corporation from 750 litres per day to 230 litres per day. “Things were in a really bad shape when we took them into our hands after an interlude of eight years during which government officers managed the things,” he claimed.

QMC chairman Kashif Shoro, who is the brother of Sindh local government minister Jam Khan Shoro, did not reply to calls and messages. The situation in Qasimabad was no different from the areas that fell under the HMC.

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