Daily Times

KARACHI: After Supreme Court’s deadline of a week to the Karachi mayor to clear the city of garbage dumps, Wasim Akhtar clarified on Monday that under the existing system of governance waste management was the responsibility of the provincial government.

“This is not my responsibility, they (Sindh government) have not left this option with the Karachi Municipal Corporation,” Akhtar said, while speaking to the media.

The mayor said that worldwide waste management and maintenance of proper sanitation facilities in cities was a function of municipal bodies, however, that was not the case in Karachi.

“I have given this statement in court as well. The chief justice said do whatever can be done.”

On the other hand, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah remarked that the city had all the facilities to pick up trash from different sites. He assured that the garbage would be picked up before the Saturday deadline. “The citizens must also play their part in this regard and restrain from littering on the roads.”

Last Saturday, the CJ give Akhtar a week’s time to clean up the city. During the hearing of the case the Karachi registry of the court, CJ Mian Saqib Nasir expressed anger over heaps of garbage dumped all over the city and ordered that the metropolis should be cleaned within a week.

During the court proceedings, the CJ observed that Karachi’s cleanliness situation had deteriorated with time. “I don’t know how, but you need to clean the city. I don’t want to see trash on streets of Karachi anymore,” he observed.

Heaps of garbage have clogged drains while trash piles are seen everywhere, he remarked, questioning whose job it was to clean the city.

Sindh Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon accepted before the court that about 4.6 tonnes of garbage was not being picked up in the city, adding that some roads in the city had not been cleaned since six months.

Over this, the CJP remarked, “Waseem Akhtar was right, this is the job of DMCs [district municipal corporations], which are subordinate to the Sindh government.”

The chief secretary also informed the court the system for picking up trash in the city has been improved and garbage is being picked up.

Published in Daily Times, March 20^th 2018.