Cost of the city's vital project, called Karachi Sewage Treatment Plant (commonly known as S-III Project), has been skyrocketed from Rs 7.8 to Rs 16 billion due to inordinate delay in starting the project by Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB).
Talking to Business Recorder here on Friday, World Wide Fund's (Pakistan) marine life expert, Mohammad Moazzam Khan, said that of the total 450 million gallons of sewage and toxic waste water being generated daily in Karachi, only 50mgd sewage was being treated at two sewerage plants, located at Gutter Baghicha and Maripur, whereas the KWSB's third treatment plant, situated at Mehmoodabad, had been lying idle since long owing to heavy encroachments in and around it.
Keeping in view the importance of the S-III Project, the government had approved it in 2007-2008 and was scheduled to be completed in 2012. However, work on the project could not begun till now, initially due to unlawful allotment of its major component's land in Korangi, near Pakistan Oil Refinery, to some members of Sindh Assembly, belonging to Ghaghar Multi-purpose Co-operative Society and partly because of non-allocation of funds by federal and Sindh governments.
It might be recalled here that the S-III land which was allotted to KWSB for setting up a major component of treatment plant in Korangi was, however, retrieved from the MPAs on the orders of former chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The inordinate delay in starting the S-III Project was, on the one hand, resulting into dumping of over 450mgd of untreated sewage and toxic waste into the Arabia Sea and, on the other hand, its cost has jumped to Rs 16 billion.
Citing the hazards of dumping of such a huge quantity of untreated sewage into the Arabian Sea, the marine expert said that these include environmental pollution along the city's beaches and coastal areas, threat to marine life, besides disturbances to ecological balance. Moreover, untreated chemical waste of the city's industries being dumped into the Arabian Sea was another major factor responsible for the degradation of the city's environment, he opined.