‘We don’t want faulty drainage channels laid in DHA again’

As the residents of Karachi’s upmarket Defence Housing Authority (DHA) neighbourhood continue to wait for relief after this year’s unprecedented monsoon rains wreaked havoc across the city, Defence Society Residents Association President Sharfuddin Memon has shed some light on what’s being done to deal with the situation.

“We met with DHA and CBC [Cantonment Board Clifton] officials after the rains,” he told The News, “and in the last meeting it was decided that a new water drainage channel will be laid.”

He said that he had objected to the idea and asked the authorities to first take to task those who had laid the faulty drainage channels in the middle of the roads in DHA and to ensure that the same mistake wasn’t repeated. “I’m sure that the DHA and CBC’s engineers aren’t smart enough to lay a proper drainage channel,” he said, adding that the authorities must take the residents into confidence on who they issue a contract to, and ensure checks and balances on all engineering work.

Referring to the recent construction of Chaudhry Khaliq-uz-Zaman Road, Memon said that the contractor has constructed manholes a feet above road level, with no street lights installed as yet, which causes road traffic accidents.

A CBC official related to engineering work, Shahjahan, said that construction and repair works after the floods are being carried out phase-wise. “The storm water drains have been cleaned, the roads are being repaired and sewerage lines are also being cleaned in order,” he said, making the assurance that all the complaints will be addressed in a few months.

The CBC, according to the information available on its website, was brought into existence through a notification dated February 27, 1983 to provide municipal cover to eight DHA phases, together with 13 slum settlements located in the periphery and Clifton’s blocks 8 and 9.

“It is spread over an area of 51.327 square kilometres, with a swelling population of 0.5 million at present. The Karachi Cantonment is on its north and west, towards the east lies the City District Government Karachi and towards the southern parameter stretches the Arabian Sea.” The DHA had constructed the area and handed it over to the CBC for municipal affairs and tax collection.