KARACHI CITY GOVT. TO COMPLETE CLEANING DRAINS BY JUNE

City District Government was performing cleaning work of all major storm water drains in Karachi on war footing basis to finish it by June before the start of next monsoon season. This was stated by DCO Karachi Muhammad Hussain Syed while talking to media representatives after inspecting cleaning and de-silting work of Gujjar Nullah, Machchar Colony Nullah and Nehr-e-Khayam on Thursday. He was accompanied by media representatives on this visit.

DCO Karachi said that it was impossible to permanently solve the water drainage problem without proper channelization of drains and construction of roads alongside all major drains like on the lines of Lyari Expressway.

He said that city government has made a plan to channelize Mehmoodabad and Manzoor Colony Nullah and it was trying to complete this work as soon as possible.

The DCO said that more than 15 drains in Karachi drains out rain water; however these drains have now narrowed down due to the encroachments established on their edges while the dumping of garbage in these drains had also chocked them at many points.

“Each year city government performs the complete cleaning of all these drains before the start monsoon with a cost of crores of rupees, but still it feels that this is not the permanent solution of the problem and the actual solution lies in the widening and channelization of drains and construction of roads alongside their edges so that these drains could be cleaned properly and the environmental conditions could be made better,” he added.

DCO Karachi informed media representatives that city government had also submitted a plan for channelization of Gujjar Nullah to the federal government but still the project was in approval process.

He said that the cleaning of drains was started in March this year with the help of heavy machinery and a part of the Manzoor Colony and Mehmoodabad Nullah from Qayyumabad to Nursery had been already cleaned while the cleaning of Gujjar and Machchar Colony Nullah and Nehr-e-Khayam in Clifton was underway after which cleaning of others drains will begin.

DCO Karachi said that city government was aware of this that the citizens could have troubles due to the hurdles in the drainage of storm water anywhere in the city, therefore it will completely clean all major drains of city before June and also do this work again if needed.

Regarding solid waste management he said that citizens would soon have good news in this connection as talks between city government and a consortium was underway.

DCO said that though the solid waste management belongs to towns as their basic responsibility but still city government provides necessary cooperation to towns in this regard so that the city could be kept cleaned. He further said that there should be a one window operation to solve the solid waste management problem.

On this occasion DCO Karachi also announced to give one thousand rupees each to the municipal workers deputed on the cleaning of drains. He also praised their performance.