$20 billion effluent plants plan in limbo

The federal government's Rs $20 billion plan to set up effluent treatment plants in five industrial areas of Karachi has been in limbo last three and half years.
Sources at Sindh Environment and Alternate Energy Department informed Business Recorder here on Monday that the project could not be initiated so far mainly because of the grave concerns over the project, raised by different stakeholders.
However, neither the industrial sector nor the government had tried seriously to resolve the matter via dialogue thus putting the project in cold storage, sources maintained. The plan of setting up five ETPs in industrial areas of Karachi including Korangi, Landhi, F.B Area and New Karachi industrial areas was prepared in late 2004 by the Federal Ministry of Industries.
The basic objective of establishing the plants was to ensure discharge of treated sewerage water into the sea to prevent marine and land environmental degradation in the coastal areas of Karachi. But, the delay in the project is posing threat not only to the marine life, but also the lives of the people living along the coastline due to discharge of untreated chemical wastes of hundreds of factories of the city into the sea.
Sources revealed that most of the reservations of the stakeholders cover the matter of the supervising authority of the plants, as none was named in the prototype model of the project, prepared by a reputable Scandinavian firm.
"In the project, no stakeholder including federal government, city government or private sector was named to run the project, therefore, none of the stakeholder expressed interest in contributing to the project," a provincial government official said.
Meanwhile, the industrial circles blamed the bureaucratic tactics of the government officials for the delay in establishment of ETPs, fearing that the aim of the project could not be achieved if it was owned or run by the government.
Opposing the idea that government should run the project, a renowned industrialist requesting anonymity, said that the industrialists' organisations have already suggested that an independent consortium should be constituted to oversee construction of treatment plants as well as its running.
"All stakeholders including trade persons, federal, provincial and city government and others should be taken onboard in the consortium, which should have full autonomy to run its business," he maintained. He said that the failing in the establishment of the ETPs could harm the exports of the industrial units, as according to the WTO charter, all factories would have to undergo annual environmental auditing in order to continue their exports.
He revealed that the local exporters were facing immense pressure by foreign buyers from many of the European countries to set up sewerage treatment plants to comply with standard set by European Union regarding environment protection.