LARKANA: The release of sewage water into Larkana’s Rice Canal could not be put to end despite Sindh government’s efforts and directives of the water commission set up by the Supreme Court (SC) over the issue. The contaminated water of the Rice Canal is not only being used for drinking purpose by a large number of villages, but it is also making underground drinking water of Larkana unfit for human consumption.
As per reports, many people have been infected with deadly diseases not only in Larkana but up to Dadu district and subsoil water has also become highly contaminated. The district government authorities also took several steps to stop draining of sewage into the Canal but have so far failed to carve out solutions to the issue.
A detailed examination showed that from Dodai village to Larkana – a distance of about five kilometers – human waste could be seen on both sides of the Canal. Moreover, sewage water enters into the Rice Canal through approximately 187 small and large pipes out of which 102 pipes are on right side of Rice Canal and 85 on left side.
The residents of these areas also throw garbage into the Canal without any check either by the Larkana Municipal Corporation (LMC) or Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) engineers. Irrigation water flows once in a year during paddy sowing season in Rice Canal and now it looks like a huge sewage drain which also flows downstream up to Dadu district. This has caused severe problems to the residents of the area.
The people living on both sides of the Rice Canal claimed that their areas are without any drainage system hence they have no option but to dispose it off into the Canal through pipes.
Larkana Mayor Aslam Shaikh claimed on Sunday that as many as 28 big pipes have been removed so far but two pipes of two drainage schemes are still releasing poisonous sewage water into Rice Canal. He said sewage water was previously thrown into the Canal through 495 pipes illegally erected by the residents living on both sides of the Canal which are being removed by PHED. Mayor hoped that all pipes will be removed by June next year.
He continued that out of five Oxidation Plants, three have been completed which are located on the outskirts of the city and work on two is underway which too will be completed by June 2019. He said some quantity of filtered sewage water is also used by the growers of the area to irrigate their lands and the rest is again released into the Rice Canal from oxidation ponds.
Mayor disclosed that pipe removing work was launched when Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari took notice of the menace in 2014. However, the Water Commission’s directives of sewage pipe removal in December 2017 are yet to be acted upon.