‘Effluent treatment plants needed on a war footing’

Sindh Minister for Environment, Climate Change & Coastal Development Nawabzada Taimur Talpur said on Thursday that combined effluent treatment plants needed to be installed on a war footing.

He was chairing a meeting convened to discuss major environmental issues of the province and to deliberate on progress on the implementation of the recommendations of the Supreme Court-mandated water commission, particularly for the installation of the waste water treatment plants/septic tanks in all industrial units.

All the stakeholders ranging from all industries’ associations of the province, the Karachi Port Trust, cantonment boards, the Sindh Solid Waste Management, the Sindh Building Control Authority and others were present in the meeting.

Talpur said that under the leadership of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari , the party’s supremo, Sindh had a performance-driven cabinet. “I have an open door policy as we are here not to confront but to facilitate and all the concerned stakeholders, including all the government departments, have also to comply with the directives as given in the orders of the water commission in industrial zones and all the other auxiliary directives in this regard,” he said.

Director General Sindh Environment Protection Agency Naeem Mughal said that though the provincial government was installing five combined effluent treatment plants at a cost of Rs11.3 billion, the installation of pre-treatment plants by industries was also obligatory.

“For the past several years, we have been listening to the same excuses, but it is time to enforce the law as protection of environment in inevitable,” he said.

Zubair Motiwala, a business community leader representing the North Karachi Industrial Association, said that businessmen were follow the directives of the water commission not just as a compulsion but also due to the fact that it was a legal binding on them to fulfil export parameters.