‘At most, only 40pc garbage can be removed from city streets daily’

Karachi
Over recent years, Karachiites have been witness to repeated shows of feigned concern from ministers and administrators over the city’s persistently sordid sanitary conditions.
This particular year brought more of the same as, on February 23, Sindh Local Government Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon launched a full-scale cleanliness campaign with all the customary hoopla fallaciously associated with what, essentially, remains the most basic of civic responsibilities.
Though a little over a month has since passed, a visit to the Civic Centre on Monday by The News all but confirmed that the drive seems to have, more or less, fizzled out.
As if the strong opinions voiced by citizens waiting patiently to register garbage and sewerage related complaints were not enough, Municipal Commissioner Masood Alam, while affirming that the latest campaign was indeed underway, also provided a candid view of the matter.
“The problem stems from the fact that, technically, the KMC has nothing to do with garbage collection in the city. That task remains solely for the district municipal corporations (DMCs) to carry out,” explained Alam, who happened to be the only senior officer present at work as all others, including the KMC administrator and department directors, were yet to clock in.
“What no one has taken into account with this arrangement is that the DMCs simply do not possess the capacity to accomplish the task. At most, they can manage 40 percent of the total waste load.”
While he expressed confidence in the potential value of special sanitation campaigns, Alam highlighted the lax planning of these projects as the cause of recurrent failure. “When we know that more than half of Karachi’s everyday waste cannot be picked up due to limited operational capacity, how can we expect positive results from these cleanliness drives?”
For the people who regularly show up at the municipal authority’s offices with waste management related complaints, Alam says he can offer no more than guidance. “People do not know that these matters fall under the jurisdiction of DMCs. Because they are unaware, they come to the KMC with complaints about roadside garbage dumps or choked sewerage lines.”
Of those trying to get a hold of an officer to vent their grievances, a thickset middle-aged man summed up the situation with a sharp observation. “It is not just my neighbourhood or a select few others. Most of Karachi still resembles a garbage dump because these cleanliness drives remain limited to areas that ministers and municipal high-ups actually happen to visit.”
His assertions were backed by the versions this scribe was able to gather from a few official sources. They acknowledged that clean-up operations were largely carried out only in areas visited by the minister and senior officials; all this despite millions having been incurred in operational expenses such as fuel and machinery costs.