Daily Times

KARACHI: An imported 104 meter tall snorkel truck, worth Rs500 million, has reached the Karachi Port, Sindh Local Government Project Director Niaz Soomro Niaz has told Daily Times.

“After port clearance within a week, the machine will be handed over to Karachi Metropolitan Corporation,” he says.

The snorkel is the second one imported from Finland. Before this, in 2016, another 104 meter snorkel was imported for the Rescue 1122 emergency service in Lahore.

Niaz Soomro says that Meraj and Company, the importer, will look after the maintenance, job and operation of the snorkel for five years, according to accord. He says that an expert team will soon arrive in Karachi to operate the snorkel.

Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s (KMC) Chief Fire officer Tahseen Ahmad says that the snorkel truck will be kept in one of the four sites of civic entity that were suggested by the department. He says Sohrab Goth Fire Station, open spaces on Tariq Road, Shahrah-e-Faisal and Clifton are the sites under consideration.

Tehseen says that Karachi is still in need of four more snorkel trucks to deal with rescue operations during emergencies, because the city has a number of high rise buildings.

Tehseen adds high rise buildings present in the metropolis have no rescue facilities and the KMC has only three snorkel trucks with heights ranging from 40 meters to 55 meters. “These machines are in dire need of repair,” Tehseen says.

Two snorkels were supposed to be imported for Karachi and Lahore respectively in 2016 but the import remained pending for two years on account of cancellation of the purchase order by former Sindh Minister for Local Government, Jam Khan Shoro, according to official documents available with Daily Times.

Two companies, Leapfrog Solutions Pakistan Private Limited and Meraj and Company took part in the tender process and made bids for the snorkel truck. Leapfrog won the tender for its lower rates that were around Rs 495 million but the purchase order was cancelled on Jam Khan Shoro’s directive. Three months down the lane, a fresh tender was issued and Meraj and Company shortlisted for the import of the snorkel truck.

Meanwhile, another four snorkels have been promised to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) by the federal government in April this year. These trucks will reach the city by December.

According to international standards, a snorkel is required per a million people in a city. With a population of 21.2 million, the city should have at least 20 functional snorkel trucks, he says.

Kazim Ali , a retired officer of the Karachi Fire Department, is of the opinion that manoeuvrability of this size of machine is unsuitable for most of the existing Karachi road network. He says that the 104 meter snorkel will not be able to serve different areas of the city because of narrow lanes, roads, underpasses and flyovers.

According to Ali, the weight of this machine will also damage roads due to its strong jerks. The machine is also not suitable for ports, shipyard, power plants, and airport, he adds. He says that only 13 companies across the globe manufactured this type of snorkel, and only one of them, the Finland-based firm, manufactured snorkels bigger than 100 meters. He states that Finland’s snorkel manufacturers faced little global competition.

Published in Daily Times, June 25^th 2018.