SHC tells DHA to confer with engineers to solve drainage issue

The Sindh High Court on Wednesday directed the Defence Housing Authority to hold a meeting with engineers proposed by the residents to sort out the drainage issue in the area.

Hearing a petition of DHA and Clifton residents seeking the appointment of a qualified sanitation engineer to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the drainage infrastructure in the area, a high court division bench headed by Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi observed that there was a total failure on the part of the DHA to resolve the drainage issue in the area.

The court observed that roads were in a dilapidated condition in the DHA area, and residents were compelled to place bags of gravel outside their houses for stopping rainwater from entering their houses.

It inquired the DHA counsel what steps had been taken to resolve the issue and directed him to submit a complete solution in this regard. It observed that the administration was doing nothing to drain out the rainwater but waiting for the absorption of rainwater in the soil.

The petitioners’ counsel submitted that the opinion of a foreign experts’ team as well as a judicial commission report on water and sanitation had also highlighted the issue, their recommendations were not paid attention to by the DHA. The court directed the DHA to hold a meeting with engineers proposed by the petitioners and submit the minutes of the meeting at the next hearing.

Technical experts had earlier informed the court that the existing storm water drains in DHA were unable to handle rainwater, in addition to sewage flow and domestic waste, significantly reducing their design capacity.

Filing a report on the DHA drains’ situation vetted by NED engineers, the experts said that extreme flooding in 2020 and this year in Karachi in general and in DHA in particular were recent examples of flooding due to a lack of planning and maintenance of the drainage system of a cosmopolitan city.

The report stated that some drains are used as combined sewers and rain drains, which goes against the purpose for which they are designed. The experts said storm water drains are meant to handle only rainwater, so they will likely overflow when they are already handling sewage flow at 50 per cent of their capacity.

It said the outfalls of the drains are in a poor hydraulic condition, and that the entire system is in need of rehabilitation and maintenance.

Residents had filed a petition seeking an effective infrastructure for the sewerage and drainage system in the area, and compensation for the loss of lives and damage to properties during the monsoon rains of 2020.

The petitioners, including Azar Kalwar, had maintained in their plea that at least 41 people were killed across Karachi due to the rains on August 27 and 28, 2020. They said the city’s people, including DHA and Clifton residents, had to suffer losses worth millions of rupees due to catastrophic flooding after the rains. They pointed out that authorities had been receiving millions of rupees in taxes under different heads, but they had been spending nothing on the drainage infrastructure of the city.