KARACHI: The National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) has urged the Sindh government to order reopening of public parks in Karachi after adopting proper SOPs as keeping shut such recreational facilities for a prolonged period of time is definitely not in the interest of public health.

In a statement issued on Friday, NFEH President Naeem Qureshi said that there was no justification to keep shut the public parks and similar recreational facilities in Karachi when various sectors and institutions have been reopened with proper SOPs.

"Parks are supposed to play an important role in the lives of Karachiites to help them in maintaining their health and fitness so keeping them shut for such a long period is not the right step by the government," he said.

He said that the closure of parks and such recreational facilities for such a prolonged duration would not be in the favour of the government's continuing fight against the coronavirus epidemic.

"Parks are open-air green and healthy spaces in urban areas as the immune system and health of people get strengthened by frequently visiting such places that are more nearer to the nature," he said.

The NFEH president said that the human respiratory system became strong the more people were allowed to visit green spaces like park having minimal effects of air pollution. "The more respiratory system is strong the more easily we will recover from coronavirus infection without any adverse effects on our health," he said.

But it is important that the Sindh government should adopt proper standard operating procedures, as it did in the case of other sectors and institutions, before ordering reopening of the parks and similar recreational facilities.

Qureshi said that a mechanism should be adopted to make it binding upon the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and District Municipal Corporations to implement these SOPs in the parks in their respective jurisdictions.

"One should keep in mind that public parks by virtue of their design and structure automatically provides ample opportunity to ensure social distancing among its visitors if crowd is avoided by limiting the number of visitors at a time," he said.

Qureshi urged the Sindh Chief Minister to take a decision in this regard after thoroughly consulting the concerned heads of municipal agencies including Karachi's Mayor on this proposal.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020