CM thinks Karachi can be cleaned in three days

Warns commissioner and administrator of strict action if garbage accumulated along

roads and streets of city not removed within deadline

Karachi

The Sindh chief minister warned the Karachi commissioner and the administrator on Monday that if the garbage accumulated along the roads and streets of the city was not removed within three days, action would be taken against them.

Expressing his anger over trash littered across the city, Qaim Ali Shah while presiding over a meeting said the provincial government had issued funds to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, the District Municipal Corporations, and deputy commissioners for cleaning the city and providing water to citizens through tankers but nothing had been achieved so far.

He directed the commissioner and the administrator to ensure that garbage was lifted from every area of city using all the machinery and human resources at their disposal within three days otherwise stern action would be taken against them.

“We don’t need sanitation workers in local bodies who draw salaries but don’t work,” he said.

The KMC and DMCs have many sanitation workers and machinery to lift garbage from collection points and dump it at landfill sites.

“The provincial government keeps providing additional funds to the KMC and DMCs for the salaries of their employees and cleanliness of their areas but they are not performing their duties,” Shah said.

The chief minister said he had personally visited different areas of Karachi and found heaps of garbage across the city. He warned that if garbage was not removed from the city within three days, he would not only terminate the services of the officials concerned, but also take further action against them.

The chief minister also expressed his dissatisfaction over how the free tanker service in the city’s water shortage-hit areas was being run.

He directed the commissioner improve the service and also take action against illegal water connections. He added said industries facing water shortage should be facilitated through authorised means.

Local government minister Jam Khan Shoro informed the chief minister that criminals involved in water theft were earning up to Rs80 million every month causing massive losses to the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board.

The meeting was also attended by additional secretary (development) Mohammad Waseem, Karachi commissioner Ejaz Ahmed Khan, local government secretary Baqaullah Unar, Karachi administrator Laeeq Ahmed, KWSB managing director Misbahuddin Farid, and the chief minister’s principal secretary Alamuddin Bullo.

‘No such orders’

Later talking to reporters, commissioner Ejaz Ahmed Khan said the chief minister had not ordered the removal of garbage from entire Karachi in three days, and only directed the officials concerned to clean the South district.

He added the chief minister had issued these directives after he had visited some place in the city the previous night.

The commissioner said TV news channels were reporting these directives of the chief minister on their own. He also complained that the media were hostile to him.

‘An impossible task’

A senior KMC   officer told The News that it was impossible to remove all of the garbage from the city within three days.

“Karachi generates 12,000 tonnes of garbage every day and half of it is dumped on the roads. That is why the city is littered with garbage,” he added.

A KMC spokesperson said Karachi was larger than 12 countries of the world and the DMCs did not have the resources to lift all the garbage in the city in just three days.

In the past, the local government had outsources the task of lifting garbage to private firms.

Even though the government had spent billions of rupees, these firms too had failed to do the job.

The government had also set up a solid waste management department where billions of rupees were spent on paper work and separate lands were acquired to dump garbage near Thatta.

KMC administrator Laeeq Ahmed, who holds the additional charge of heading the solid waste management system, has not held a single meeting to discuss the city’s sanitation problems.