SC seeks details of Karachi’s drainage system
The three-judge bench expresses displeasure over the lack of treatment plants in the city.
There were three sewerage treatment plants in the city installed by the British when they ruled the Indian subcontinent, but not a single one is operational anymore. PHOTO: MOHAMMAD NOMAN/EXPRESS
KARACHI:
Millions of gallons of Karachi’s untreated waste flows into the sea as there is no plant to treat it, confessed the city’s water and sewerage utility chief before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
There were three sewerage treatment plants in the city installed by the British when they ruled the Indian subcontinent, but not a single one is operational anymore, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) managing director Hashim Raza Zaidi submitted to the apex court as it took up the long-running environmental pollution case.
The case, which comprises a number of identical applications against environmental pollution in the coastal areas and the sea due to the discharge of untreated toxic water, was heard by a three-judge bench, headed by Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany, in the SC’s Karachi Registry on Tuesday.
Listening to Zaidi’s revelations, Justice Osmany observed that due to the untreated toxic water being dumped into the sea, the marine life was being adversely affected.
If the plants were better maintained, they would have been working, observed Justice Osmany, taking exception to the apathy of the authorities and the fact that no new machinery was installed in 68 years while the city’s population grew from 200,000 to over 20 million.
During the hearing, the counsel representing the provincial board of revenue told the court that 300 acres of land had been handed over to the KWSB for a mega-sewerage project, S-III, without even estimating its market value. The provincial government’s attorney added that the government had allocated the amount for the project but it could not be started as the federal government and industrial institutions were yet to add their share.
During a previous hearing, the court had constituted a tripartite committee, comprising the provincial chief secretary, federal planning secretary and federal finance secretary to submit a conclusive report.
When the additional advocate-general of the province, Sarwar Khan, started reading the multi-page report, the bench asked him to simply define what measures were taken to stop marine pollution. He, however, failed to give any satisfactory reply.
With regards to the drainage system, the bench remarked that unplanned developments across the land and sea had brought the city to a vulnerable stage in case of heavy rains. Justice Osmany observed that illegal buildings were being constructed on drains and the 300-foot-wide Malir River was shrinking into a three-foot canal as it entered the upscale DHA.
The bench, comprising Justice Osmany, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Maqbool Baqar, directed the provincial environmental secretary, SITE manging director and a senior revenue official to submit their report on the measures taken to protect the environment on the next hearing on July 11.
The apex court also directed the KWSB managing director and revenue board officials to submit a map of the city in which the existing and proposed projects for draining water were demarcated.
Karachi was once the Paris of the East but unfortunately, nothing remarkable in terms of its development had been undertaken since the creation of the country, the bench observed in its concluding remarks.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 10th, 2015.
Millions of gallons of Karachi’s untreated waste flows into the sea as there is no plant to treat it, confessed the city’s water and sewerage utility chief before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
There were three sewerage treatment plants in the city installed by the British when they ruled the Indian subcontinent, but not a single one is operational anymore, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) managing director Hashim Raza Zaidi submitted to the apex court as it took up the long-running environmental pollution case.
The case, which comprises a number of identical applications against environmental pollution in the coastal areas and the sea due to the discharge of untreated toxic water, was heard by a three-judge bench, headed by Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany, in the SC’s Karachi Registry on Tuesday.
Listening to Zaidi’s revelations, Justice Osmany observed that due to the untreated toxic water being dumped into the sea, the marine life was being adversely affected.
If the plants were better maintained, they would have been working, observed Justice Osmany, taking exception to the apathy of the authorities and the fact that no new machinery was installed in 68 years while the city’s population grew from 200,000 to over 20 million.
During the hearing, the counsel representing the provincial board of revenue told the court that 300 acres of land had been handed over to the KWSB for a mega-sewerage project, S-III, without even estimating its market value. The provincial government’s attorney added that the government had allocated the amount for the project but it could not be started as the federal government and industrial institutions were yet to add their share.
During a previous hearing, the court had constituted a tripartite committee, comprising the provincial chief secretary, federal planning secretary and federal finance secretary to submit a conclusive report.
When the additional advocate-general of the province, Sarwar Khan, started reading the multi-page report, the bench asked him to simply define what measures were taken to stop marine pollution. He, however, failed to give any satisfactory reply.
With regards to the drainage system, the bench remarked that unplanned developments across the land and sea had brought the city to a vulnerable stage in case of heavy rains. Justice Osmany observed that illegal buildings were being constructed on drains and the 300-foot-wide Malir River was shrinking into a three-foot canal as it entered the upscale DHA.
The bench, comprising Justice Osmany, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Maqbool Baqar, directed the provincial environmental secretary, SITE manging director and a senior revenue official to submit their report on the measures taken to protect the environment on the next hearing on July 11.
The apex court also directed the KWSB managing director and revenue board officials to submit a map of the city in which the existing and proposed projects for draining water were demarcated.
Karachi was once the Paris of the East but unfortunately, nothing remarkable in terms of its development had been undertaken since the creation of the country, the bench observed in its concluding remarks.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 10th, 2015.