Shabby sanitation : Sinkholes reappear post rain spell

WASA officials claim replacing instead of repairing damaged pipelines is the only real solution

LAHORE:

While the monsoon downpours triggered widespread destruction across rural landscapes, the presence of faulty sewage pipes across Punjab’s capital, has led to the formation of massive sinkholes in urban areas, disrupting commute.

Despite the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) promising a timely repair of faulty sewage lines across the city, a majority of the sanitation pipes in Lahore remain in a deplorable state, deeply aggravated by the recent spell of torrential rains, which has put immense pressure on the worn out lines. And some have exploded to form huge sinkholes across multiple avenues in the city including the Johar Town and Garden Town areas, presenting a conundrum for the nearby locals, who are unable to carry on with their day-to-day activities given the looming risk of suffering a fatal accident.

“I have to commute to school regularly,” shared Abdul Rafi, a student. “But unfortunately, every time it rains, a sinkhole is formed, and it causes incessant gridlocks due to which I cannot reach school on time,” he added.

Similar to Rafi, Dawood Ahmed, another daily commuter using the Garden Town underpass, too felt that the faulty pipelines triggered the formation of sinkholes after every rain spell, and the repair work which followed disrupted the flow of traffic for days on end, which was a source of nuisance for citizens. According to sources from WASA, the recent rains have put immense pressure on the worn-out sewage lines, instigating the formation of massive sinkholes across popular areas including the Garden Town underpass, Gawalmandi inner city and Johar Town, with the Khayaban-e-Firdousi highway impacted the worst, with five sinkholes appearing just over a couple of days.

“The sewage pipeline in Khayaban-e-Firdousi highway is more than 30 years old and is cracked at multiple junctions, causing water to overflow and form sinkholes,” said an official from WASA, who further added that the growing urban population had already stressed the sewage holding capacity of the outdated pipes.

“Therefore, the only real solution to the problem is to replace the pipes instead of repeatedly repairing them,” asserted the official.

It is worth mentioning that during the previous government’s tenure, WASA had sent a letter to the government clearly stating that the pipeline at Johar Town was in dire need of replacement, but the recommendation was not taken into consideration when finalising the annual development budget and the authorities chose to simply repair the pipeline.

It is such negligence which allowed the formation of a massive crater at the Johar Town road in February which sucked in a car, severely injuring the passengers on board.

Similarly, as a local of Johar Town, Mohammad Usman, rightfully recalls, a pit was formed in front of the Shaukat Khanum Hospital earlier this year, which was in Usman’s words, “unusually deep”.

Speaking to The Express Tribune on the matter, Managing Director at WASA, Ghufran Ahmed agreed that replacing the sewage pipeline was the only solution to the problem. “I have sent a summary to the government, so that the replacement project can be initiated immediately. The cost of this project is approximately Rs 1.3 billion. I hope that this project reaches completion soon and the grievances of commuters during the monsoon season are relieved,” said Ahmed.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 31^st, 2023.