Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that heavy rains in Karachi has caused problems but the entire government machinery, including local bodies was active for dewatering the roads. This, he said, talking to the media during his visits to various parts of the city. He was accompanied by Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani, Minister Excise Mukesh Chawla, VC NED Dr Sarosh Lodhi, Commissioner Karachi Iftikhar Shahlwani, Special Secretary Local Government Niaz Soomro and others.
The chief minister said that all major nullahs in the city have been encroached at one or the other place. "The nullahs which were naturally so wide have been reduced to hardly a few feet because people squatted and established their homes there," he said, adding that despite congestion, the government had cleansed them.
He started his visit from Sharea Faisal and stopped at the turning towards Tariq Road where underground waterline collapsed creating a wide trench on main road. The chief minister directed MD Water Board Asadullah Khan to repair it urgently; otherwise rain water would seep into nearby buildings and would damage them too.
Two begging kids:
At Nursery, two small children, brother and sister were begging sitting on wheelchairs. The chief minister stopped there and affectionately interviewed them. They both were from Jacobabad and their father had got them there. The chief minister found that the children were not disabled but acting like disables. He shifted them to Commissioner's office and directed the commissioner to summon their father and take an undertaking in writing for not engaging his innocent children in beggary. "If he [father of children] can't afford their meals and schooling I would do that but won't allow them stretching their small hands before other people for a few coins," he said.
The chief minister visited Gulshan-e-Iqbal, opposite to Urdu University, Nipa Chowrangi, Safoora Chowrangi, Northern Bypass, Saadi Town, Lyari riverbed at Sohrab Goth Bridge and Gujjar Nala at Nazimabad and various other parts of the city. Shah said that Northern Bypass construction had stopped smooth flow of rain water; therefore, water penetrated nearby areas, including Saadi Town and nearby localities. He said that Northern Bypass was established on a natural waterway and when it was constructed appropriate culverts would have been constructed to give way to water but it was not done.
He directed VC NED University and Special Secretary Local Government Niaz Soomro to conduct study of the underpass and explore ways and means to give way to water so that nearby localities and the Bypass itself could be saved from flooding. To a question, he said that the roads constructed under Karachi package I, II and III have service lanes, median and drainage system; therefore, rain water have drained out from there. He said that the roads constructed earlier had not been given provision of drainage, hence water accumulated there and DMCs and deputy commissioners had to install dewatering pumps to clear them.
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