KARACHI: Sindh government has assured the Water Commission in an undertaking that after completion of modalities and import of required machinery and equipment, four sewage treatments plants will start functioning in different phases under the Greater Karachi Sewerage Plan (S-III). Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon and Muhammad Waseem from Planning and Development Department have said that the government is ready to finance all these treatment plants. In this connection, TP-III Mauripur of 54 million gallon of sewage water per day capacity will become functional by June 2018 as the contractor has agreed to import machinery and allied material. TP-I Haroonabad with a capacity of 180 MGD will likely commence operations by December 2018. Project Director Noor Muhammad has informed Daily Times that 3.5 kilometers pumping extension work on TP-II Mahmoodabad for discharging water into Malir River is likely to be completed by March 2019. Ground work on new TP-IV Korangi Creek with a capacity of 360 MGD will likely be started soon after an international tender is floated. The project director has said that the plants will be functional in three years. Meanwhile, the commission has directed authorities concerned to submit weekly progress reports on the matter. Explaining project plans, Noor Muhammad has said that 300 acres of land will be acquired for TP-IV from the Board of Revenue. Demarcation and other work will be started soon after the approval of the Board of Revenue. Contractors working on Lyari River have been asked to complete remaining 20 percent conduit construction work by the end May 2018, he has said. The conduit system will be connected with TP-III Mauripur. The tender process for the construction of conduit system on Malir River will be completed by March 2018. The sewage water of this system will be treated at Korangi Creek Plant and after treatment it will be discharged into the Arabian Sea. “It is the first instance of the federal and the Sindh government collaborating on a sewerage project. Hopefully, the project will soon be a reality with these efforts,” Noor says. Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui, the federal secretary for Planning and Development, says that with the approval of minutes by the cabinet division, funds will be released for S-III project before the end of the financial year. He assures that since it is a project of high importance, there will be no delays in the release of funds. The Water Commission has also directed the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) to start work on its own on 60 MGD treatment plant. Land has already been reserved on Mai Kolachi Road for this purpose. A spokesman of KPT says that the cost of the project will come at around Rs 1.5 billion to Rs 2 billion with an estimated completion period of two years. The status of combined Effluents Treatment Plants estimating cost of Rs 11 billion in industrial areas of Karachi is also under consideration in order to discharge treated industrial water into sea. Along with large quantities of solid waste and floating pollutants, Karachi’s coastlines have been receiving untreated sewage from Lyari and Malir rivers and various nullahs for decades. This has converted the coastal belt into a big cesspool and has caused problems for port operations, resulting in huge cost for required dredging operations. Absence of water treatment facilities have also devastated the environmental along the coastline, resulting in loss of mangroves, fishery export and tourism. Qamar Qureshi, the president of Economic Forum Pakistan, hopes that after the completion of the project, the city will finally have a clean coast, improved public health and hygienic conditions, all of which will lead to revamping of marine ecology. Published in Daily Times, February 21st 2018.