Trail of trash: Garbage dumping spots adjacent to schools worry staff

100-day campaign goes to waste due to ill-planning and mismanagement

KARACHI: Garbage dumping sites are ubiquitous in Shah Faisal Colony, like any other area of the city. Unfortunately, most of these spots are adjacent to the boundary walls of schools and colleges in the colony.

With the aim to give the city a neater look, mayor Wasim Akhtar kicked off a 100-day cleanliness campaign from Shah Faisal Colony No 2 on December 1, along with District Municipal Corporation (DMC) Korangi officials.



Almost 25 days later undesignated garbage collection points, near the boundary walls of the colony's schools and colleges still continue to deface the area.

Just adjacent to the Khurshid Girls College, a huge pile of litter is strewn on the street. A few young trash pickers can be seen scavenging through the waste. Meanwhile, a man with a trolley comes and dumps more trash there. "This is the garbage dumping point," he said. The man is a worker of DMC Korangi.

He remarked that for three consecutive days the DMC workers dump the area's garbage in front of the college and afterwards a vehicle comes, lifts half of it and goes away.

A similar situation can be observed at the Girls Boys Agro Technical School, which is situated a street away from Khurshid Girls College. Just in front of the entrance of the school, garbage is strewn on almost half of the road and from it comes an obnoxious smell.

"Just when the school starts, the district officials come to lift the garbage," said the guard of the Girls Boys Agro Technical School, when The Express Tribune visited the area.



The principal of the same school, Syeda Mahnaz, remarked that the school administration has time and again requested the district staff not to lift the garbage during school hours, as it emits an extremely unpleasant smell and poses a health hazard for the students. The children are extremely vulnerable to diseases due to the huge pile of garbage present in front of the school, according to Mahnaz.

"We have also written applications to the administration to move the garbage collection spots away from the schools but no one pays any heed to it," she lamented.

An official of District Korangi's education department, Fahad, pointed out that there are 11 schools and colleges in the area, which have been affected by the trash piled in front of their buildings. These schools include the Girls Boys Secondary School, Girls Boys Secondary School, Government Girls High School, Senior Model Girls Boys Secondary School, Girls Boys Primary School — Education Centre and Anjuman-e-Mufaad-e-Niswan School among others.

100-day campaign

The mayor's campaign seeks to target districts East, Korangi and Central in the first phase and he also plans to construct a hospital, school and park in a few of the union committees in these districts.

However, almost a month after the launch of the campaign and there has been no drastic improvement in the cityscape due ill-planning and the campaign's inability to change the spots for garbage collection.



Fahad remarked that Akhtar's campaign has failed to bear any fruit. "The garbage which used to be lifted after weeks or months is now lifted at least once a week," he said.  However, it has not made the situation any better due to the amount of trash which gathers in the area on a regular basis, he explained.

Demarcation problems

Meanwhile, an official of DMC Korangi, requesting anonymity, said that after Shah Faisal Colony was incorporated into District Korangi, all of its machinery was shifted to District Malir. Due to this, there is dearth of machinery to clean Shah Faisal Colony, he pointed out.

District Korangi chairman Nayyer Raza did not respond despite repeated calls for comments.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2016.