All proposed garbage transfer stations to be built by June 2025

All the proposed garbage transfer stations (GTSs) to be built in Karachi under the World Bank-funded Solid Waste Emergency & Efficiency Project (SWEEP) will be completed by June 2025 for the scientific disposal of 10,000 to 12,000 tonnes of trash generated in the city daily and for the launch of the waste-to-energy initiative.

Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani was informed about this on Wednesday during his visit to the offices of SWEEP, the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) and the Competitive and Livable City of Karachi (CLICK) project to get a briefing from their officials on the functioning of these civic agencies.

Ghani directed the officials of the SSWMB to improve their coordination with other municipal and civic agencies to improve the sanitation affairs in the city.

He was briefed that the CLICK project had computerised data of 40,000 municipal service employees of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and 18 towns of the city. The KMC and the 18 towns have developed human resource systems for the direct transfer of salaries of their employees to their bank accounts. The minister directed the SSWMB officials to conduct a mass awareness campaign to motivate retailers and shopkeepers at every market in the city to avoid disposing of their waste on roadsides and to instead use trash bins for the purpose.

He said that the mechanical sweeping of roads should continue throughout the week at the times when vehicular traffic has a reduced flow. He asked the SSWMB officials to quickly resolve the public’s complaints about unsatisfactory sanitation, waste collection and disposal affairs in the city.

He also said the project for door-to-door collection of municipal waste from residential areas should be implemented in the city at an accelerated pace so that trash is not dumped on roadsides and into storm water drains.

SSWMB Managing Director Syed Imtiaz Ali Shah briefed the LG minister about the functioning of a command & control centre for the centralised monitoring of solid waste collection and disposal operations in the city involving GTSs and landfill sites. Shah told the provincial minister that certain mafias had been active in the city, whose members sorted out precious scrap items from the municipal waste while the rest of the trash was illegally dumped into the drains.

He appealed to Ghani that SSWMB field officers be empowered under the provincial LG law to impose fines against such illegal and harmful waste collection and disposal practices in the city.

SWEEP MD Zubair Channa was of the view that school curricula should include the topic of healthy and safe waste disposal practices in the city.

Channa later told the minister that proper scientific studies had been completed on waste generation in the city and other urban parts of the province.

He said that the construction of four modern and scientific GTSs would be completed in the city by June next year for launching the waste-to-energy project.

CLICK Project Director Asif Jan Siddiqui told Ghani that the WB-assisted project had been initially scheduled to be completed this year at a cost of Rs65 billion.

Siddiqui said that a proposal has been prepared for extending the deadline for the completion of the project by 23 months until May 2026. So far Rs11 billion out of the Rs65 billion budget for the project has been spent, he added. He said the CLICK project has so far computerised the database of 40,000 employees of the municipal agencies in Karachi under the SAP software.