Milk Karachi org

Pak Environ Index 2018 0rg

Karachi Water woes

Forest Pakistan -- Significance, Situation & Initiatives

Water Conservation in Metropolitan & Launching The Farozaan Area Water Partnership Karachi

Pakistan Water Partnership is a part of Global Water Partnership Program and volunteering this partnership to provincial and district levels, the launching ceremony of the Farozaan Area Water Partnership Karachi was held on March 3, 2018 at Sindh Social Welfare Training Institute Karachi.

The head of Pakistan Water Partnership Sardar Muhamad Tariq presided the ceremony with internationally-famed scholar and expert on water resource management Dr. Pervaiz Amir as the keynote speaker and guest of the evening.

Dr. Pervaiz Amir stressing the need of trees and water in urban cities said that citizens must come up and play their roles to make Karachi sustainable and livable. He said that because of scarcity and contamination of water Karachi is longer livable now. “Even if you (people) want to live without conserving and managing your water resources then you must build a thousand new hospitals for your healthcare because most of the disease you are infected these days are water-borne in Karachi”, he opines. Replying a question from audience Dr. Pervaiz suggested that desalination plants and rain water harvesting could be two alternate and smart solutions in Karachi to meet out water demands rather banking completely upon governmental schemes.

Sardar Muhammad Tariq was of the view that there is no substitute of clean air and pure water on earth, therefore both must be preserved and cared. He emphasized on the increase of water storage capacity in Pakistan. In this regards he reveals “In case of drought our country has only 30-day water storage capacity, compared to India’ 100-day and Australia’ 600-days. While the Egypt has a remarkable storage capacity for more than three years and this art of water management the Egyptians inherited and learned from their old civilization.” He pointed out that if Pakistan has to meet out its agricultural and industrial demands of water, it must bring improvement of up to 40% in it’s current water storage fold.

Sardar Tariq also told the significance of the Sustainable Development Goals and pointed out the plastic pollution and marine pollution as the top negative indictors of the city.       

Earlier renowned environment journalist and the Editor in chief of Farozaan threw light on water crisis in Karachi and signaling out the water theft by tanker mafia termed it the main reason behind water scarcity in the metropolitan. 

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Editorial, Infocus

Public littering; Crime that’s charged only in Karachi

Throwing trash in public and open spaces is definitely a criminal offence in Pakistan Panel Code, however the recent decision of the judicial Magistrate to release the citizens in Karachi booked under Section 188 for throwing garbage in open space is really a judicious one.

The Section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the Pakistan Panel Code has been here in Pakistan since a long time. But when the Sindh Government through a notification issued on February 26, 2018 on behalf of Home Department specially imposed a ban on dumping household, industrial, commercial or hospital waste in open residential and commercial areas, it cast a dark shadow.  The notification states “In pursuance of Section 195 (i) (a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the SHO of the police station concerned is hereby authorised to register complaints under Section 188 of Pakistan Panel Code in writing for violation of Section 144 against those who don’t obey these order”.

Like always the Karachi police followed these ragged orders with open arms and began arresting common people across the city. Though it was written in the notification that “Unscrupulous elements in the municipal authorities, contractors of the Solid Waste Management Board (SWMB) and some private citizens are also in the habit of burning these heaps garbage, which is resulting in serious environmental and health hazards”. And, also on February 22, 2018 the SWMB chief Taha Farooqui had himself admitted that “all the garbage being generated by the metropolis was not reaching the landfill sites” and urged the civic agencies to ensure that their waste reaches the required destination. But police arrested only citizens rather any contractors of SWMB or staff of municipal authorities who were and still are overtly involved in burning garbage in public spaces instead of shifting it to garbage stations or landfill sites.  

After the issuance of notification, the Karachi Police without wasting time started taking action and registered cases against citizens. From the very next day in Old city area police arrested two suspects who allegedly threw garbage on a main road and registered FIR against them. Similar actions were taken against a number of citizens for throwing garbage outside homes in Garden, Saudabad and Khawaja Ajmer Nagri areas within days.

However, when two of these culprits were presented before court the judicial Magistrate Asif Raza Mir ordered the release of the accused and quashed cases against them. In his remarks the Magistrate stated when “nothing was ideal in the city in respect of the disposal of garbage, it was strange to arrest people over garbage-throwing”. The Magistrate further and rightly observed that the administration has neither made any arrangement for lifting trash nor provided any proper civic facilities to the citizens that’s why waste was dumped at public places in localities, and it was not fair to arrest citizens in such conditions.

There is no doubt public littering is definitely not acceptable, and many less considerate citizens have a nasty habit of disposing of trash in open spaces in the absence of trash bins in streets and roads. It is an open secret the garbage collection system in the city is overwhelmingly politicised and unsatisfactory. So, most of the people in the city tend to get rid of their household trash by duping it in the nearest kachra kundi. But if this can get them arrested, that seems to have no logic.    

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Editorial, Infocus     

(Courtesy    Mera Karachi Group for image)

Sindh Food Authority & its lone benefactor Karachi

The Sindh Food Authority is supposed to get active this week from Feb 20, 2017, with Karachi as its first experimental and most lucrative phase. The Authority’ Bill was approved by the Sindh Assembly on March 8, 2017 and with the signature of the Governor Sindh it became the Sindh Food Authority Act on April 8, 2017.

There is no denying the Sindh Food Authority is the need of the hour. If it works impartially and transparently, safe and healthy food would be accessible to an already-deprived common man. As reported in media, the Authority have four various financial penalties at its disposal, which may be termed source of revenues too. The Registration Fee on all vendors from a 5-Star restaurant to push-cart vendor ranging from Rs. 500 to Rs. 50000. The Annual fees on them from Rs. 80 to Rs. 8000.  Penalties ranging from Rs. three lac to five lac if medical of employees are not covered and similar amount of fines for serving sub-standard food.

Overviewing the domain of these penalties, it seems that the Authority’ main targets are outdoor food-serving vendors. While the kind of edibles and even basic food stuff including vegetables, fruits, dairies, cereals, poultry, meat, etc. are in market hardly anybody satisfies from it. There is a serious need to have a check on their supply and production too, which the Food Authority doesn’t seem to cater. Second, the provincial authority should begin its functioning impartially and across the province even-handedly. But to target only Karachi even in experimental phase, questions the impartiality of the Sindh Food Authority.

The foremost irony is the Sindh Government neither developed its organizational structure nor has its own staff to manage and run functioning of the institution, yet it has only devised penalties and monetary fines which it will start to pocket from this week only in Karachi with the help of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation staff.

The Authority has not established offices and neither have concerned staff at District level. Nor have any Food laboratory at District level, a pre-requisite for Authority. Yet they are starting its operations from Karachi through KMC food inspectors because Karachi have always been a cash cow for all such means and greed.

Even if the Sindh Food Authority is going to begin operations from Karachi it should keep in mind the metropolitan has 6 districts. And, according to the Authority’ Act there must be a food lab in each district of the province, so before begin operations the Authority is required to first establish food labs in each district of Karachi, which is a vast and sizable megacity in terms of distance and population. Currently, Karachi has only a single food lab that too is under the control of KMC rather Sindh Food Authority.

The Authority’ by-laws permit food inspectors to collect registration and annual fees from a push cart or roadside vendor to a 5-Star hotel or lush eatery. It raises a serious question how they can keep a watch on a moveable seller who doesn’t have his own place. Secondly, these push carts and roadside vendors mostly do business occupying roadside encroachments, so after collecting Registration and Renewal fees from them does the Sindh Food Authority are going to regularize these encroachments?  

Therefore, an anti-encroachment drive is must before Authority begin its operations, otherwise we will see more hustle in already congested downtown of the city.

Lastly there is no room in the Authority’ set up for important relevant ministries like Environment, Local Government or Agriculture nor have representation from any Consumer and Civil Society. That insinuates an authoritarian and exploitative intention behind the law makers of this Authority.

Yet, there is no denying a Food Authority is the need of time not only in Karachi but also across the province. Wish all these shortcomings would be overcome soon.  

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Editorial, Infocus