Karachi has seen much improvement in sanitation lately, Nasir Shah tells PA

Concerned lawmakers of the Sindh Assembly were informed by the government on Friday that there had been much improvement in the sanitation and municipal waste disposal in Karachi and the residents of the city would witness more improvements in the days to come.

The claim to this effect was made by Sindh Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah as he spoke in the House while responding to the call-attention notice of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) MPA Muhammad Hussain Khan.

Speaking on his call-attention notice, the MQM-P legislator said his constituency in the Korangi area had been turned into a virtual garbage dump due to poor sanitation and waste disposal in the area.

He said that non-native administrative officials had been posted in the district who were responsible for the pathetic civic situation in the area. He alleged that the Sindh local government department had been constantly posting such officials in the district who did not want to deliver.

The local government minister assured the MQM-P legislator that he would look into the issue of recent postings in the district and the MPA’s complaint would be addressed soon. Shah maintained that in case officials posted in the area were found to have committed dereliction of duty, they would immediately be removed.

Speaking on another call-attention notice, Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) legislator Nand Kumar said law and order situation had worsened in Sindh as there had been a marked increase in criminal cases related to sexual violence, killings and snatchings of two-wheelers.

Lately 480 persons had been murdered alone in Karachi, Kumar said as he claimed that narcotics had been recovered from the house of a station house officer of the Sindh police. He asked who would secure the lives of the people if police officials themselves were involved in criminal activities.

Responding to the call-attention notice, Sindh Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla said the GDA MPA had unduly portrayed the law and order situation in such a dreary manner that nobody would dare to step outside their home in the province.

Speaking on a point of order, the leader of the opposition, Haleem Adil Sheikh, who belongs to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, narrated that a girl student enrolled in a privately run school in Karachi had been subjected to harassment by the school administration merely on account of non-payment of tuition fee.

He said the father of the girl in question had also been manhandled by the school administration as he was forcibly expelled from the school. He added that no authority was available in Sindh to control and manage private educational institutions having massive enrolment of students due to non-functional government schools.

Sheikh also criticised the Sindh government for its recent decision to close down 10,000 government-run schools after declaring them non-viable educational institutions. The parliamentary affairs minister, however, responded that the complaint in question had become a sub-judice matter and so it could not be discussed during the session in accordance with the rules of the assembly.

The opposition leader also raised the issue of the contract being finalised by the Sindh education department to procure furniture for the government-run schools under which a single classroom desk would be purchased at an exorbitant rate of Rs30,000.

He appealed to the rulers of Sindh to not commit corruption in the education sector for the sake of academic future of the students. Sindh Information Minister Saeed Ghani informed the House that an independent and autonomous central procurement committee having eminent persons as its members had supervised the affairs of the deal to procure school furniture in Sindh and the committee did not come under the influence of the government.

Meanwhile, the House unanimously passed a resolution to pay homage to the leader of Kashmir freedom movement, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who recently passed away. The lone MPA of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal in the House, Syed Abdul Rasheed, tabled the resolution.