Pakistan Women’s Foundation calls for peace on garbage

KARACHI: The port city has been orphaned and abandoned. Once it was considered the cleanliest city of Asia but now it the sixth most unlivable city in the world.

These views were expressed by speakers at a press conference on garbage situation in the city held by the Pakistan Women’s Foundation for Peace (PWFFP) at the Karachi Press Club on Friday.

Pakistan Medical Association General Secretary Qaisar Sajjar, Nargis Rahman, Justice (R) Shaique Usmani, Dr Minhaj Qidwai of the PWFFP and others were present on the occasion.

The speakers said that as soon as rains lashed the city, sewage flooded most of the streets, heaps of garbage on the streets worsened the cleanliness situation, breathing and walking became a dangerous exercise, pedestrians were electrocuted to death and life came to a complete standstill. The port city, a home to over 20 million residents and the nerve centre of Pakistan, which rendered 70 per cent revenue to the national kitty, had been left helpless by the authorities.

They lamented the state of affairs in the city and urged people to take matters in their own hands. The city had become home to all kinds of disease and bacteria, and no one was willing to take care of it. The authorities lived in a mantra of shameful denial although local, national and international press carried headlines of Karachi’s degradation and consequent suffering and losses.

The approach and management of the city's provincial and local government officials were very distressing. The Sindh government claimed that they had performed all their duties satisfactorily despite many incomplete projects.

The mayor complained that through the Sindh Local Government Act, 2013, the city slashed its revenue resources and authority by returning of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board to the provincial government and establishing the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board, the speakers added.