Missing manhole covers pose serious threat

Reeking, brimming with garbage, home to rats and a potential threat to pedestrians and motorcyclists, the federal capital’s manholes are either missing or have broken covers.

Once the iron lids on manholes go missing, either due to being stolen or broken in by heavy vehicles, the manholes substitute as trash cans or as overflowing puddles for rainwater eventually choking the sewage system and becoming breeding ground for rodents and infectious mosquitoes.

Sagar Raja, a shopkeeper at Aabpara market, tired of witnessing garbage filled manholes, which gave off a putrid smell, in front of his place of business complained to the Capital Development Authority (CDA).

“I have complained to the CDA about two open sewers in the inner part of the market several times but no one has fixed them yet,” he complained. Raja stated that the CDA, whose headquarters are on the same road, the Khayaban-e-Soharwardi, as the Aabpara market, and a CDA complaint office which is in the vicinity of the market, have turned a blind eye to the pile of trash that is collecting in the manholes making life miserable for consumers and shopkeepers alike.

Some 15 kilometers away from Aabpara, at Khanna Road, Muneeb Ahmed, a garment shopkeeper, while talking to the Express Tribune, stated that open manholes featured heavily on the busy road. “We have become used to the open sewers, complaining about them is a waste of time,” Ahmed said.

Regardless of what part of Islamabad it is, open manholes are not an odd sight. Nasir Hameed, a resident of the Farash town area of the capital, informed that the busy bazaar between Alipur and Farash had two dangerous manholes which had victimized unwary motorcyclists previously. Hameed added that the sewers posed a greater threat when it rained as the rainwater formed a puddle hiding the open manhole in plain sight.

Afraid of such injury-causing incidents and looking out for the people of his locality, Wajid Mahmood, a resident of Sitara Market, had to cover up an open gutter near his home with tree branches to avoid any mishaps.

“The sewer has been missing a lid for the past three months and since no one took action, we covered it ourselves so that no one would fall in it,” Mahmood said.

Syed Asif Raza Shah, spokesperson for the CDA, when inquired about the federal capital’s persistent open manhole problem denied it being a problem. “Our teams do daily inspections and cover manholes every week,” he said.

Shah acknowledged that sometimes either heavy vehicles broke lid covers or vagabonds would steal them and suggested that shopkeepers should keep an eye out for such incidents.

“Whenever we receive such complaints about an open sewer, we replace the lid within two days,” Shah told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10, 2022.