‘Polio battle in the slums, not countryside’

Peshawar and Karachi reservoirs for the virus; WASAs need to be independent.

Pakistan could be soon facing international sanctions for being unable to eradicate polio which is hardly surprising as Karachi’s Gadap Town and Peshawar have become known as ‘reservoirs’ for the poliovirus.

Speaking at a session on the second day of the Pakistan Urban Forum-South Asian Cities Conference, Kamran Naeem from UN-Habitat stressed that curtailing the transmission of the disease was as important as launching anti-polio drives.

Two polio cases have been already confirmed from Karachi’s Baldia Town this year. The virus, Naeem said, mostly spreads orally after infected sewage mixes with drinking water, which multiplies over time.

“We started off trying to fix problems in the rural areas but we soon figured out that sanitary issues were at a much higher ratio in the urban areas, where sewage is disposed of untreated,” he said, adding that the infrastructure of the financial hub was rusting, compounding the problem.



Naeem stressed that in order to overcome the poliovirus it was necessary for the government to take control of the water and sewage management of the slum areas of the country.  Citing Gadap Town as a case study, he shared a survey conducted by Unicef which stated that around 95% of the local residents in Gadap Town unofficially used the services of the Karachi Water and Sewage Board.

“Our efficiency will not be optimum if we fail to take into account the slum areas of the city. If we want to get rid of the menace we will have to bring the slum areas under the water board,” he said.

Talking about the steps which can be taken to improve the efficiency of the municipality system, former finance minister Dr Salman Shah said that new polices, which make Water and Sanitation Agencies (Wasa) independent, should be drafted.

Elaborating on plans to be implemented in Punjab, Shah said that competition should be brought in to improve Wasas. The Punjab government plans to allocate funds based on the performance of Wasa which would will encourage competition and improve the quality of work.

Supporting Shah’s suggestions, Vandana Bhatnagar said that the private sector could play a vital role in improving the efficiency of the municipality as it would bring investment and initiate self-financing which would stabilise the entities and make them independent.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2014.