IMC eyes landfill in Sector I-17 Islamabad

Pre-bid meeting called for next week to review documents, gauge interest of companies

ISLAMABAD: With the capital struggling to dispose of offal and waste from some 60,000 animals who were sacrificed over Eidul Azha, the city’s administrators have run into another problem – where should they build a landfill to dispose of that and other waste generated in the city.

The Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (IMC) has called a pre-bid meeting next week for companies interested in constructing a landfill at a proposed site in Sector I-17 to dump waste produced by the city.

The bid documents have been prepared by an eight-member committee of the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation headed by the Chief Metropolitan Officer (CMO), IMC Sanitation Director Sardar Khan Zimri told The Express Tribune. He added that the committee included the Sanitation director general, Sanitation director, Sanitation deputy director, Contract director, QE director, Accounts director, MPO director, and the FED director.

The meeting, though, has raised the eyebrows of the Chief Metropolitan Officer and Capital Development Authority (CDA) Member Planning Asad Kiyani who told The Express Tribune that the proposed site is still afflicted by water problems and is hence not suitable for building a landfill.

“There is another CDA-acquired land in Rawat which is under consideration for constructing a landfill site,” Kiyani said.

Zimri, while expressing ignorance about the proposed site in Rawat, said that the pre-bid documents noted that a proposed landfill site could be built within 35 kilometres of the city.

“Rawat also falls within this radius,” Zimri said.

Rawat is located to the south of Islamabad, just outside the jurisdiction of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). Sector I-17, yet to be fully developed, is located to the south west of the capital on the edge of ICT’s jurisdiction. Zimri added that the committee has prepared documents for the landfill in light of the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) and PEPRA rules.

Moreover, he said that the IMC has received expressions of interest (EOI) from around seven foreign companies including three from Turkey and four from China. Two local firms, including the National Cleaning Services (NCS) and Mian Maqsood and Brothers, are also interested in the project.

The IMC Sanitation director said while the city administration expects around a dozen firms to compete for the contract, the true extent of interest by companies will be ascertained on September 12 based on the number of companies which attend the pre-bid meeting.

At the moment, the capital generates around 600 metric tonnes of solid waste on a daily basis which is dumped either at the temporary landfill in Sector I-12 or at open, unattended sites in the rural areas of the capital.

Much of this waste ends up in the streams and rivers and becomes a breeding ground for disease-carrying pathogens. It was also termed as the main reason for the outbreak of dengue cases in the rural areas of the capital last autumn.

In 2015, a high-powered commission set up by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had expressed serious dissatisfaction over the way the Capital Development Authority (CDA) was handling disposal of solid waste in the capital.

Subsequently, in June 2015 the CDA identified two places in and around the capital to build landfill sites. One potential site was in Rawat and the other was in Kallar Syedan. The authority said it would select the site after the environmental impact assessment (EIA) study was completed.

However, after local government elections in November 2015 and the subsequent transfer of CDA’s municipal services to the newly created IMC in 2016, the subject remained on the back burner as the new local government failed to finalise a site for the new landfill.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 6^th, 2017.