Daily Times

KARACHI: Clifton Sewerage Pumping Station, built at a cost of Rs590 m, was inaugurated this week, ahead of World Toilet Day today.

Each year, on November 19, World Toilet Day is celebrated to raise sanitary awareness and inspire people to act against and tackle the global sanitation crisis – a topic which is often neglected and shrouded in taboos.

Inauguration of Clifton Pumping Station is significant and relevant to the occasion of World Toilet Day as it has a capacity of 50m gallons per day (MGD) sewerage water, pumping station has started draining out around 30 MGD sewerage water of Clifton, M A Jinnah Road, Old City area, Saddar, Sultanabad including 24 localities. This station was destroyed in 2010 in an act of terrorism.

Abubakar Yousafzai, dweller of Karachi’s Clifton area at Bath Island believes that new pumping station will provide with improved sanitation facilities to people in a greater extent.

Yousafzai, a researcher, like other residents of adjoining areas including Hijrat Colony and Sultanabad was braving sheer hardship due to poor sanitation infrastructure multiplied with sewage water related ailments. Not only the dilapidated sanitation system, its seepage harmonized with network of drinking water pipelines, was making the supplied water infectious and not fit for human consumption.

Water supplied through this broken pipeline network is a health hazard and causing epidemics of water-borne diseases like malaria, diarrhea, hepatitis, typhoid fever and many other ailments.

“Heaps of garbage are scattered in the area and the un-healthy conditions generated by broken pipelines are the common causes of waterborne diseases,” Yousafzai added.

According to him, ratio of the ailments due to water-borne diseases is higher than any other general ailments.

“It looks like newly formed local government is trying to work to some extent but they are toothless,” he regretted.

According to a latest report, Pakistan stands 10th among worst urban sanitation. ‘Overflowing Cities: The State of the World’s Toilets 2016’ has been published by WaterAid, an international charity organization working to improve access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in Pakistan,” report said.

As per the report 700m urban dwellers around the world are living without sanitation while 12m of them are in Pakistan.

The problem is so big that more than 48,000 people living in Pakistan’s towns and cities have no choice but to defecate in the open using roadsides, railway tracks and even plastic bags dubbed ‘flying toilets’. However Pakistan is making progress in helping its urban population gain access to a toilet. Since 1990 the proportion of urbanites living without sanitation has halved, and it now also ranks seventh in the world for the country making the most progress in reaching urban populations with toilets.

“Despite all challenges, Pakistan is making progress in helping its urban population gain access to a toilet,” said Ayesha Javed, a representative of WaterAid.

“Since 1990 the proportion of urbanites living without sanitation has halved, and it now also ranks seventh in the world for the country making the most progress in reaching urban populations with toilets,” she added.

Around 315,000 children, almost 900 children each day, or one child every two minutes die each year from diarrhea related diseases caused by contaminated water and poor sanitation