Members of the Sindh Assembly’s Parliamentary Task Force on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have expressed serious concern over the non-functioning of the affluent treatment plants in the province, which is posing a great danger to the people’s health.
Presided over by the task force’s chairman, Pir Mujeeb ul Haque, the MPAs attended a meeting at the Sindh Assembly a few days ago. They emphasised the need for measures to control the leakage of methane gas from the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals around the Karachi coast.
MPAs of various political pirates, including Saeed Afridi, Farhat Seemi, Kalsoom Chandio, Shahzad Qureshi, Arsalan Taj, Ghazala Siyal, and Heer Soho, ex-MPA Sumita Afzaal and other government officers also attend the meeting.
Naeem Ahmed Mughal, the director-general of the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa), said an estimated 470 million gallons per day (mgd) of industrial and municipal waste from Karachi was directly disposed into the sea without any treatment. Eighty per cent of the waste is sewage and 20 per cent is industrial waste, he added.
The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) is the implementation agency for CET plants, and Sepa has a regulatory role.
Similarly, he pointed out that the situation in other major cities of Sindh was even worse where industrial and municipal sewerage water was directly disposed of in the River Indus or its canals. All municipal and industrial sewage generated from the Hyderabad city was directly disposed of into the Phuleli Canal or the Indus River without any treatment. Similarly, the industrial effluent from the industries of Kotri is put into the KB Feeder, which supplies drinking water via Keenjhar Lake to Karachi.
Mughal also said Sepa had closed down many industries which were not following environmental standards. He gave an example of a cement factory in the Nooriabad industrial area, which was closed down for two months, and after it installed an air treatment plant, Sepa allowed it to operate.
He said Sepa is trying to implement environmental quality standards in industries and no new industry is allowed without the installation of treatment plants. During the last three years, 209 treatment plants have been installed in industries in Karachi and 50 more water wastewater treatment plants are being installed. Haque asked the Sepa chief to give a detailed presentation to the members of the Aassembly.
Earlier, in a presentation, environmental expert Nasir Panhwar said that Pakistan is on the list of 5th most vulnerable countries to climate change, in particular water scarcity and extreme events.
Over the past decade, damage and losses resulting from natural disasters in Pakistan have exceeded $18 billion, he said. “Sindh is facing environmental challenges due to climate change and the sea level along the Karachi coast has risen approximately 10 centimetres in the last century and is expected to further rise by 60 centimetres by the end of the century.
He said a climate change policy has been drafted, but still it is not approved.
Zeenia Shaukat, director of The Knowledge Forum, said about 80 per cent of the country’s energy comes from fossil fuel-based means, whereas very little attention is paid to generating energy from renewables.
She pointed out that persistent events such as heatwaves, regular flash floods, reduction in water resources and dwindling agriculture resources emphasised the need for stronger institutional action on climate change.
Jameel Junejo, an environmental expert, said that due to the shortage of natural gas in the country, the government was developing LNG terminals to supply gas via pipes to different parts of the country. “Two LNG terminals have been developed and five are under construction.”
