Rains in Karachi: ‘NDMA, FWO have cleared 95pc of main storm drains in five days’

KARACHI: Praising Prime Minister Imran Khan’s decision to send the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to start a clean-up campaign in Karachi after the devastation caused by late July’s monsoon rains, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leaders said on Friday the federal agency, after giving the task to the Frontier Works Organisation, has cleaned 95 per cent of the city’s main storm nullahs in a mere five days.

PTI parliamentary leader in Sindh Assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh visited various areas, including Gujjar nullah, on Friday — the second day of the fourth spell of monsoon rains in the city — and reviewed the situation.

“Prime Minister Imran Khan has been monitoring Karachi’s situation closely and it is the reason that after the devastation of the last spell of rains, he has given responsibilities to the NDMA and instructed the federal agency’s chairman to arrive in Karachi,” he said, adding that the FWO had been given the task to remove sludge and garbage from Gujjar, Korangi and Mowach Goth drains.

Showing satisfaction over the federal agency’s performance, the PTI leader said that 95 percent of sludge had been removed from the city’s three main strorm nullahs within five days, and because of it, rainwater was flowing easily in Karachi during the latest spell of rains. “We are not saying that everything is fine; there is a lot of work left and we want to do work for the betterment of the public,” said Sheikh. “What has not been done in the last 12 years has been done in five days.”

Criticising the Pakistan People’s Party-led Sindh government, he said that despite having a water and sewerage board, a solid waste management board and other departments, the provincial government could not clean the drains before the monsoon rains. “It shows their incompetence and apathy towards the city,” he said.

After the passage of the 18th Amendment, the responsibility for sanitation rests with the Sindh government, he said. “We want to work but the 18th Amendment is the main hurdle stopping us from working in the city,” he said.

The PTI leader said the Sindh government needed money only for corruption, not for work and development. He appealed to the residents of Karachi not to allow waste material and sewage water to flow into these drains. “These drains are for rainwater flow only, but unfortunately gutter water is flowing into these drains.”