QMC lacks machinery to clean city

QUETTA:

The Quetta Metropolitan Corporation (QMC) is facing an acute shortage of machinery and tools as the authority has not purchased new machinery and vehicles for the last thirty years.

The QMC has not been able to collect all the waste produced in the city every day due to a shortage of staff and equipment. A total of 800 sanitary workers are carrying out cleanliness work in the city of four million people. The corporation has sought waste lifting machinery from the Provincial Disaster Management Authority in order to launch a cleanliness drive in the city.

Talking to APP, Quetta Administrator Muhammad Hamza Shafqaat said QMC had not purchased new machinery and vehicles since 1994. He said an operation would be launched to clean the water courses and nullahs for efficient working of the sewerage system so that rain and waste water do not cause inconvenience to the public.

Under the supervision of the Quetta Administrator, the corporation has collected over 10,000 tons of trash from the city in a short period of 12 days. Shafqaat said the authority is all set to collect door-to-door garbage to make Quetta a clean city within two weeks.

The Commissioner said the government had made efforts to increase the waste collecting capacity of QMC by 500 tons to 1,600 tons daily by outsourcing Quetta solid waste management.

He noted that a plan was in the pipeline to carry out solid waste management in Quetta on a public- private partnership basis to improve the city’s sewage system, adding that cleanliness drives were being carried out in every area of the city on a regular basis and that the QMC was ensuring the collection and disposal of garbage in every area of the provincial capital from Sariyab to Nawan Killi.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2024.