Largest freshwater reservoir: SC seeks report on contaminated Manchar Lake

Attorney tells court the water and power secretary could not appear as he was in an 'important meeting'

KARACHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought a detailed report on the measures taken so far to treat the growing level of contamination in Manchar Lake, the largest freshwater reservoir of the country, from the federal secretaries of finance and water and power within two weeks. 

A two-member bench expressed displeasure over the absence of the two top officials despite having been summoned on a previous hearing at the apex court's Karachi Registry. However, deputy attorney-general Aslam Butt, appearing on behalf of the state, told the court that the water and power secretary was busy in an 'important' meeting in Islamabad while the finance secretary had gone aboard.

Read: Toxic waste: SC wants to know if funds for treatment plant at Manchar were released

The bench observed that the officials were visiting foreign countries oblivious to the fact that people were dying in their own country, adding that the whole system seemed to have collapsed and the bureaucracy was not moving an inch.

One of the judges remarked that Asia's largest lake had turned into a sludge reservoir due to the authorities' negligence and observed that if a single person died of this cause, a case will be registered against them.

During the hearing, the secretary for planning and development also appeared before the court and said that a dispute over the right bank outfall drain - a canal designed to reduce salinity in the lake - was going on between Sindh and Balochistan, which is why this project was taking time.

Read: Manchar Lake case: SC issues show-cause notice to federal finance secretary

To this, one of the judges said that the authorities may take time as long as 25 years to resolve their disputes but first they should at least stop toxic chemicals from falling into the scenic lake and save the livelihood of a large number of fishermen's families. Not a single treatment plant has been made functional at the lake, he said, adding that the judiciary has to play its role to sort things out when state institutions collapse. "Even after 68 years, the country is still relying on the infrastructure laid down by the British," he said.

Concluding the hearing, the bench sought a detailed report from the two absent secretaries on the measures taken so far on the ground in line of the long-running suo motu case taken up by the then chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2015.