Promises, promises: Karachi not so clean after CM’s hyped-up drive

Despite provincial govt claims, experts and officials say the effort has made no dent on city’s garbage crisis

KARACHI: When the Sindh chief minister launched the ambitious ‘Clean My Karachi’ campaign in September the promise was that it would leave the metropolis spotless.

“What we have to do is clean it [Karachi] once and for all, and hand over the cleaned city to the DMCs [district municipal corporations], who will have to maintain it from then on,” the chief minister vowed as he sold the dream of a spick and span Karachi to citizens.

In the days after, some 600 dumpers and 4,000 workers were deployed across the provincial capital. For a month, they endeavored to restore the once lost beauty of the city by the sea. Organisers of the campaign, which culminated on October 21, claimed to have lifted around 979,941 tonnes of garbage from across the city’s six districts.

Ground realities

However, while the dream may have been sweet, the slumber was shortlived. The reality appears far from the promises which were made. “The campaign seems to have died down. The intensity of garbage lifting has come to an end and garbage is yet again being dumped across the city rather than landfill sites,” lamented Urban Resource Center (URC) Joint Director Zahid Farooq.

“Officials said that around two million tonnes of garbage had piled up in the last ten years and that they lifted 979,000 tonnes in the recent drive. I am a little confused about how they ascertained this figure and what will be the fate of the remaining million tonnes of garbage?”

Farooq said that even if the chief minister’s intentions were sincere, the idea to limit the project to a month’s time given the limited resources is what likely sabotaged the campaign. “The lack of coordination between the Sindh government, local bodies, cantonment boards and other federal authorities and departments working in Karachi, is also a factor.”

Sindh opposition picks holes in ‘Clean My Karachi’ as drive ends

Addressing the lack of perceptible change in the days after the campaign, residents of the city’s coastal belt complained that they continue to face the same issues. According to them, despite the waste that was removed, garbage is still being dumped along the coast and being washed into the sea.

“A few days ago this activity was stopped. But now trucks coming from Korangi, Landhi and Quaidabad loaded with debris and garbage are offloaded on main roads inside localities,” said a representative of Karachi’s fishing community, Kamal Shah.



‘Empower local bodies’

Central Municipal Corporation Chairperson Rehman Hashmi, on the other hand, disputed the Sindh government’s claim of removing a little short of a million tonnes of garbage. He argued that the Sindh government would have done much better to empower DMCs to carry out this and other local government functions.

“After 30 days of supposed zealousness, the Sindh government is missing again with plenty of work still to be done. Instead of this entire exercise, they should have utilised the Rs50 million allocated for each DMC to empower the local bodies. This campaign will be eyewash unless DMCs and UCs [union councils] along with the KMC [Karachi Metropolitan Corporation] are empowered,” he said.

Prior efforts

This is not the first time that the powers that be have played with Karachiites’ feelings on the matter of cleanliness. Before the Sindh government-led drive, the federal government-backed ‘Let’s Clean Karachi’ campaign also promised to have the metropolis spotless after two weeks. However, the drive was estimated to cost around Rs1.7 billion, which the organisers attempted to crowd-fund. The campaign’s manpower requirements were also fulfilled by 5,000 volunteers.

Although the centre-led campaign was backed by celebrities like Faisal Qureshi, Anwar Maqsood, Fakhr-e-Alam, Salman Ahmad, members of the pop band Strings and Veena Malik, the enthusiasm was shortlived and the lack of funds was the last straw that broke the campaign’s back.

Moving forward

Despite what appear to be lacklustre attempts, Sindh authorities are confident their approach can sustainably ameliorate Karachi’s perennial garbage crisis. Local Governments Secretary Roshan Ali Khan told The Express Tribune that senior provincial officials and public representatives have held several meetings with various departments and cantonment authorities over the issue.

MWMC introduced second cleanliness shift

“This [Clean My Karachi] campaign was part of an integrated, comprehensive solid waste management plan. Karachi produces around 14,000 tonnes of solid waste every day and till September this year, hardly 7,000 tons was being lifted to landfill sites. We have not closed this gap yet but the government has plans to introduce scientific landfill sites and high-tech modern garbage transfer stations which will significantly affect Karachi’s waste management crisis,” Roshan said.

According to him, the grand project valued at Rs1.6 billion also includes plans to build Pakistan’s biggest landfill site at Dhabeji which is predicted to meet the city’s garbage needs for the next century-and-a-half. “The 3,000-acre landfill site will also feature a neem tree forest, which will counter harmful gases emanating from the waste,” he said.

URC Joint Director Farooq, however, insisted the Dhabeji landfill is nothing revolutionary. “Former Karachi administrator Fahimul Zaman also launched a train to ferry garbage to Dhabeji via the Circular Railway but that initiative failed,” he pointed out.

Even so, the chief minister has claimed several short and long-term plans are in the works to fix Karachi’s garbage crisis. He has announced that his government has set aside Rs88 million for the Central, West, Malir and Korangi DMCs and vowed that there will be no compromise of cleaning up the city.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2019.