The municipalities are suffering from a financial crisis and the little money they had was spent on paying the workers their salaries.
Now they have taken fumigation supplies on credit from their contractors to carry out the anti-bacterial drive before any diseases spread.
"Not even a single penny could be released to remove the animal remains and carry out the spray drive," admitted Karachi Metropolitan Corporation's (KMC) municipal department senior director Masood Alam. "We are conducting the drive on credit."
Alam said everyone knows about the financial crisis the KMC is facing. "We just released the salaries of our municipal staff but the fuel funds for the vehicles and the anti-bacterial spray drive have yet to be released," he said.
The contractors who are registered with the KMC have given 2,000 bottles of anti-bacterial spray for the initial phase of the drive that started on Wednesday. "They [contractors] know the situation in the city so they gave us the spray bottles on credit," explained Alam. "When the government releases the funds, then we will pay them back."
The same mechanism works to get fuel for the lifting vehicles. Registered fuel contractors, such as Noor Petroleum and Rex Petroleum, gave fuel on credit which helped the municipal workers remove remains from the roads, he added.
Delays in lifting
There were delays in lifting the animal remain is some parts of the city as it was not until 3pm on the first day of Eid that the trucks made their rounds. There was a lot of pressure on the existing workers, explained District Central's commissioner Dr Saifur Rehman.
"We already knew what the situation would be like so we hired private contractors and vehicles to remove the remains," he said. Dr Rehman felt the situation was still handled quite well considering there was a financial crisis. "We successfully removed the remains and now the fumigation drive has begun," he said. "Since we cannot take the risk of various diseases spreading in the city, we started the anti-bacterial drive by using resources from outside the department," he added.
Fumigation drive
A total of six vehicles have been allocated in each district for the fumigation drive, said its in-charge Kashif Hussain. "We have divided the districts into zones and, one-by-one, we are conducting the spray drive," he said.
According to Hussain, the department needs Rs20 million for a two-day fumigation and anti-bacterial drive, which is now being done entirely on credit.
Progress in numbers
KMC's workers union president Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah said that around 1.2 million remains were disposed of during the three Eid days. All the employees worked day and night even though most vehicles were out of order and they were not paid honorarium, he pointed out.
"The government functionaries had promised that the funds for the honorarium will be released right after Eid but we will ask again as soon as the fumigation drive ends," he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 9th, 2014.
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