GTS to be built by June next year for proper disposal of up to 12,000 tonnes of Karachi’s trash and launching waste-to-energy project, Saeed Ghani told

Karachi

All the proposed garbage transfer stations (GTS) to be built in Karachi under the World Bank-funded Solid Waste Emergency and Efficiency Project (SWEEP) will be completed by June next year for the scientific disposal of 10,000 to 12,000 tonnes of trash generated in the city daily and the launch of the waste-to-energy initiative.
Sindh Local Government Minister, Saeed Ghani, came to know this on Wednesday during his visit to the offices of SWEEP, Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB), and the Competitive and Livable City of Karachi (CLICK) project to get a briefing from their officials on the functioning of these civic agencies.
The Local Government Minister directed the officials of the SSWMB to improve their coordination with other municipal and civic agencies to improve sanitation affairs in Karachi.
Ghani was briefed that the CLICK project had computerised the data of 40,000 municipal service employees of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and 18 towns in the city. The KMC and 18 towns in Karachi have developed human resource systems for the direct transfer of the salaries of their employees to their bank accounts.
Ghani directed the SSWMB officials to conduct a mass awareness campaign to motivate the retailers and shopkeepers in every market in the city to avoid disposing of the waste on the roadside, as trash bins should instead be used for this purpose.
He said the mechanical sweeping of roads should continue throughout the week in the timing of the reduced flow of vehicular traffic.
He asked the officials of SSWMB to speedily resolve the complaints of the public about unsatisfactory sanitation, waste collection, and disposal affairs in the city.
He said the project to conduct door-to-door collection of municipal waste from residential areas should be implemented in the city at an accelerated pace so that trash shouldn’t be dumped on the roadsides or into the storm water drains.
The Managing Director of SSWMB, Syed Imtiaz Ali Shah, briefed the Local Government Minister about the functioning of a Command and Control Centre for centralised monitoring of solid waste collection and disposal operations in the city involving the GTS and landfill sites.
The SSWMB chief told the provincial minister that certain mafias had been active in the city, whose members sorted out precious scrap items from the municipal waste while the rest of the trash was illegally dumped into the drains.
He appealed to Ghani that field officers of the SSWBM should be empowered under the provincial local government law to impose fines against such illegal and harmful waste collection and disposal practices in the city.
The SSWEP chief was of the view that the school curriculum should include the topic of healthy and safe waste disposal practices in the city.
Later, SWEEP MD Zubair Channa told the Local Government Minister that proper scientific studies had been completed on waste generation in Karachi and other urban parts of Sindh.
He said that the construction of four modern and scientific GTS would be completed in the city by June next year for launching the waste-to-energy project.
CICK Project Director Asif Jan Siddiqui told Ghani that the World Bank-assisted CLICK project had been initially scheduled to be completed in the current year with a cost of Rs 65 billion. A proposal has been prepared for extending the deadline for completion of the project by 23 months until May 2026. So far, Rs 11 billion has been spent out of the Rs 65 billion budget for the project. The CLICK project has so far computerised the database of 40,000 employees of the municipal agencies in Karachi under the SAP software. The development of the computerised human resource database of the municipal staffers will prevent the chances of dual employment of the employees of local councils. The database of employees of KMC and 18 towns in Karachi has been computerised for the purpose of direct transfers of salaries to their bank accounts.
The process has been in progress to computerise the data of 23,000 pensioners at the municipal agencies.
The local government minister said the project to computerise the database of municipal staffers should be expanded to other parts of Sindh.