Daily Times

The Municipal Public Health (MPH) Services Department of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) has not been disinfecting 43 sewerage nullahs resulting in slackened efforts to counter malaria and other water-borne diseases, according to sources.

Reportedly, the nullahs in various areas of the metropolis have not been cleaned since decades since the department administration has failed at directing its staff to perform the job of cleaning the nullahs, applying pesticides and monitoring the conditions of nullahs in order to kill, harm, repel or mitigate one or more species of insects to counter the spread of malaria, typhoid and other water-borne diseases. The residents of the area, particularly those dwelling around these uncleaned and clogged nullahs have started getting sick.

Officials of the said department, disclosed that funds amounting to Rs 500 million (m) were being set aside since the last five years for the cleaning of these nullahs partially through private contractors.

Currently, 835 Malaria Qulis, 35 Mukaddam, 105 Malaria supervisors and15 micro analysts have been employed in pay scale grade one to VII. The rest of the staff employed by the department consists of five officials in BPS-19, 18 employees in BPS 18, three in BPS-17 including Health Services director, project director, Regulation and Quality Control director, Health Services and Additional Fumigation additional director and Quality Control staff.

It is worth mentioning that the total annual budget of the department stands at Rs 662 m whereas around 1,100 employees are serving in the department. For year 2018-2019 a sum of Rs 320 m was allocated for cleaning water drains by the department. Earlier, this department was also responsible for killing stray dogs but then six district municipal corporations were given this responsibility, according to the officials.

Municipal Health Services Department is running under the supervision of Municipal Services Senior Director Noman Ashraf. He told Daily Times that the department was also tasked with emergency work and rescue operations in case of fire eruption in buildings or infrastructure collapse. He said, “Plenty of employees are working in the department and since we have not been receiving funds for nullah-cleaning, we just assign other jobs to them.”

According to KMC officials, Protocol Director Abdur Rahim Kidwai who is a non-cadre official of grade 18 and serving the Karachi mayor as well has the additional charge of MPH department. The officials claimed that Kidwai was also not discharging his duties properly. “Official attendance of the department is poor and there is no notion of check and balance in the department,” they maintained.

However, Abdur Rahim Kidwai said that the department was well-aware of the problem of high absentees and failure of contractor system. He said that corrective measures were being taken to reform these aspects of the department.

Meanwhile, members of civil society affirmed that diseases were spreading in the area due to poor sanitation system and poor fumigation services.

“The city could be best described as an urbanised slum dotted with overflowing gutters and heaps of garbage,” Qamar Qureshi of Economic Forum of Pakistan (EFP) commented.

Reportedly, it has been months since the department last went on a fumigation campaign for the eradication of malaria and dengue-causing mosquitos. 50 vehicles were available for fumigation in all of the metropolis’ districts but progress is yet to be made.

Published in Daily Times, October 14^th 2018.