Murad orders monitoring of rain-affected areas of city by elected representatives

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, keeping in view heavy and excessive downpour, has decided to monitor the city of Karachi through 28 dub-divisional committees comprising elected representatives, including ministers, advisors and special assistants for timely and properly disposal of the rain water.

"I need a solid mechanism for saving low lying areas where rainwater has flooded the houses." This he said on Tuesday while presiding over a meeting to review monsoon situation and cleanliness of storm water drains.

The meeting was attended by provincial minister Saeed Ghani, Syed Nasir Shah, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, Special Assistants to CM Waqar Mehdi, Rashid Rabbani, PSCM Sajid Jamal Abro, ACS Home Usman Chachar, Commissioner Karachi Iftikhar Shahalwani, Secretary Finance Hassan Naqvi, MD Sindh Solid Waste Management Kashif Gulzar, PD SWEEP Zubair Channa, MD Water Board Khalid Shaikh, Masood Alam of KMC and others.

The chief minister said that the local bodies should have an emergency plan to deal with the heavy rain situation in the city. "The irrigation department maintains a mile-wise protection plan of embankments of their canals under which they mark vulnerable and weak points and take prompt action in case of riverine floods," he said and added "the local bodies should have a similar plan under which low-lying areas, choking points, bottlenecks, culverts of nalas and their catchment areas should have been identified on a map so that deployment of concerned staff and necessary machinery could be installed in case of heavy downpour.

Shah said that only cleaning of nala was not enough but a detailed plan must be prepared through a proper and professional survey. "Our natural water ways have either been encroached or turned into housing societies, therefore rain water could not flow away in gravity," he said.

Shah directed the Minister Local Government to remove encroachments from the storm water drains and continue their cleaning under World Bank projects and with local funding of the government.