The ministry of ports and shipping on Friday constituted a committee to technically evaluate ways to clean the 990-kilometer long pollution-hit coastline of the country, as Marine Pollution Control Board (MPCB) comes in action after at least three prolonged years to check the environmental hazard.
According to Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping, Babar Khan Ghauri the move was part of the government's Marine Pollution Strategy (MPS), under which "immediate measures" would be taken to clear the local beaches and harbours, which were receiving at least 411 million gallons industrial and domestic untreated toxic waste daily. The federal minister was briefing the media at KPT Head Office about the "first ever" meeting of MPCB after at least three years of its inception in 2006, when the then Prime Minister had formed it on the recommendations of Senate's Standing Committee on Defence.
Ghauri, also a Senator of MQM, said that the committee headed by Director General Ports and Shipping, Rear Admiral Syed Afzal (Retd) would submit its proposals within a month. The meeting, comprising officials from KWSB, PN, CDGK, Sindh Government, KPT, the minister said, all stakeholders, had observed that at least 16 sewerage drains of Karachi were directly falling into the open sea.
He said the international shipping lines and Pakistan Navy had long been complaining about the menace of sea pollution at local ports. To a query Ghauri said the government of Balochistan would provide alternate land to PN presently stationed at Gawdar Port.
The Prime Minister would make the long-awaited announcement on reduction in the port charges during his visit to the ministry, he told a questioner. The federal minister, however, ducked a question on KPT's lukewarm response to a months-old notification of the Establishment Division, directing the regularisation of its 100 plus contractual employees in different departments.
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