‘Chinese firm to start collecting garbage in next 48 hours’

KARACHI: The machinery and loaders belonging to a Chinese firm that has been outsourced the garbage collection task in the South and East districts of Karachi were released from the port after three months on Wednesday.

The Sindh chief minister will soon will inaugurate the Chinese firm’s operations.

AD Sanjanani, the managing director of the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board, told The News initially the garbage collection will start in two districts of Karachi.

He added that the firm’s operations are likely to start in the next 48 hours.

Fan Manguao, the chairman of the Changyi Kangjie Sanitation Group, had told Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah at a meeting held in Beijing in December last year that the firm would use plastic covers and compress the garbage before dumping it at transfer stations.

The chief minister had offered the company to install a plant to generate electricity from garbage. In response, the company’s chairman said they were ready for it and were also willing to accept the task of taking garbage from transfer stations to the landfill site.

The local government minister had told the provincial assembly last month that the contract for handing over of the garbage disposal task in the East and South districts in the city to a Chinese company was signed after the elected councils of these two districts had passed resolutions supporting the new system.

He said only after the councils of East and South districts had passed the resolutions, the provincial government had decided to award the contract of solid waste management to the Chinese firm.

He said the councils of the districts of Korangi and Central in the city - dominated by MQM representatives - should also pass similar resolutions so that sanitation and garbage disposal affairs in the city could be further improved.