Senate panel irked over capital’s poor sanitation system

Senators visit Sangjani landfill site, inspect nullahs

ISLAMABAD: The Sub-Committee of Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change has expressed concern over the failing sanitation system in Islamabad.

The committee members headed by Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed on Monday visited various nullahs of Islamabad to assess the environmental conditions of these natural water courses.

The panel of senators also visited the proposed landfill site in Sangjani for the dumping of garbage of the capital city. It was noted with concern that no proper sanitation system for Islamabad was in place, for both the slums as well as the planned and developed sectors of CDA.

Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, Senator Muhammad Ali Khan Saif, and the representative of civil society  Green Fora Cristina Afridi and Dr Dushka Syed voiced serious concerns about the current system of sanitation and garbage disposals.

It was decided that all stakeholders would be invited to present their views in a future meeting of the sub-committee.

Besides, government departments would present their plans to mitigate the situation and with planned timelines.

CDA officials informed the sub-committee that 20 nullahs of Islamabad had similar problems, whether in posh localities or katchi abadis.

The main issue is people use these water courses as garbage dumps which pollutes the environment and blocks the flow of water.

Moreover, unplanned construction without proper sewerage or sanitation facilities plus absence of a nullah management system has devastated these watercourses which used to run as pristine streams before Islamabad came into existence.

Currently, housing and industrial units were discharging waste directly into nullahs making the water a flowing toxic waste.

During their visit to the proposed landfill site at Sangjani, the Sub-Committee was given a briefing by CDA Member Planning of the saga of the landfill site selected earlier in 2004 of 125 acres close to Islamabad, where a foreign donor had even promised a grant and even the Environmental Protection Agency had given the NOC but the project was shelved in 2010, as land was given to a developer.

Senator Mushahid Hussain termed this ‘an act of criminal negligence’ done to protect vested interests at the expense of the people of Islamabad. He said the Senate will ensure that a landfill site is selected and that Islamabad becomes a plastic-free zone in 2019.

The Sub-Committee was accompanied by Environment Protection Agency Director General Farzana Altaf Shah and CDA Director Administration and Director Environment.

The panel was informed that after a delay of nearly a year, the civic agency of the federal capital has finally released Rs5 million as a first tranche to develop the first-ever scientific landfill in the federal capital at a site earmarked near Sangjani.

The hundreds of tonnes of solid waste generated by the city every day will be disposed of there on a permanent basis. A contract in this regard is expected to be awarded to an experienced firm after completing all formalities, stated a senior official from the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (IMC), Sanitation Wing.

The official said that a consultant will be hired to first geo-tag the targeted area and drill it to evaluate the water table of the site.

He added that they will work to ensure that underground water of the area is not polluted by creating the landfill and dumping around 750-800 metric tonnes of garbage and municipal solid waste per day.

With the federal capital lacking a formal landfill, the official said the entire process of creating the landfill will take around four months to complete. However, he said that the IMC could start disposing of the garbage after just two months on a temporary basis. The land earmarked for the landfill near Sangjani sprawls over 70 acres. It was selected due to its reasonable proximity to the city — which would mean that it will take less time and fuel to transport waste to the site.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2019.