QUETTA: The city of Quetta suffers massively due to poor drainage system, as water accumulates in roads and streets in many areas, Bol News has learnt. These civic issues not only disrupt the traffic system but also contribute to the city’s pollution problem, causing environmental degradation and the spread of diseases.
“It has become impossible to walk from one place to another in the city,” Mohammad Shoaib, a resident of Sirki Road said.
The Quetta valley is located on a slope from east to west. Almost all sewage systems consist of open drains that were designed for a limited population in terms of capacity under the slope principle. In areas where they are not cleaned, they often overflow.
In addition to this, even light rain can result in harm to the city’s environment. Also water is wasted in the form of flood which used to raise the groundwater level of the valley. At one time, karez used to flow around the city and after rainwater fell on the mountains and plains near Quetta it became part of these karez and flowed underground and maintained the water level.
However, Quetta began to spread and the population from east to west reached the mountains and the canals, gardens, fields and wetlands inside and around the city. Abbas Ali, a resident of Brewery Road, commented that rain falls in the form of relief here but due to the performance of Metropolitan Corporation Quetta (MCQ), this relief eventually takes the form of torment.
Drainage seems out of control of the MCQ, he said. “Before the entire city system is disrupted, the employees of MCQ should inspect the city and fix the system as soon as possible in the areas where work needs to be done. The solution is to make a drain on one side of some of the prominent roads of the city and cover it with perforated concrete slabs so that rainwater could be drained through these [channels] and flood situations could be avoided.”
Waste disposal
But the whole drainage system can only work better if it is cleaned regularly. Sewage drains were once cleaned daily in the early hours of the morning. The collectors used to collect garbage from the houses and load it on their carts and throw it in dustbins from where the garbage was picked up every day. But now the drains are not cleaned for many days.
It is now impossible for those responsible to pick up garbage from homes and the city on a daily basis. The Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey 2018-19 depicts the situation as follows: “In Balochistan, there is no system for garbage collection from 78 per cent of households in urban areas. While 23pc of households in urban areas of the province do not have access to sewerage facilities. “Most of these houses are in Quetta as it is the only metropolitan city in the province and home to a large portion of the province’s urban population.”
According to the United Nations report titled ‘The State of Pakistan Cities 2018,’ a total of 247 tonnes of solid waste is generated in Quetta every day. Only 50pc of this is collected according to a document of the provincial government. In other words, the city does not collect around 120 tonnes of garbage daily.
Lack of public toilets
In addition to this, another basic issue that the city is facing is the severe lack of public toilet facilities.
The city once had 42 public toilets. There are now 16 public toilets run by the municipality, most of which are closed due to their unusable condition and those that are open are in a poor state of cleanliness.
“The filth of the drains has been accumulating for many days. People are having difficulty getting around,” stated Ali Khan, a resident of Marriabad.
He appealed to the authorities concerned to immediately remove the debris blocking the drains. Usman Ahmed, a resident of Satellite Road, told Bol News that due to these reasons people are facing difficulties and even the employees of MCQ are not reacting to this.
“Despite spending millions of rupees, drainage water and piles of dirt have accumulated on the roads. And this has started spreading rot. There is an urgent need to maintain the city system. The cleaning measures taken by the administration and MCQ were inadequate.”
He further said that the employees of the agencies concerned should fulfil their responsibilities and inspect the city to play their role in alleviating the problems of the people by solving real problems faced by the citizens.
Quetta Administrator Shaukat Ali claimed that efforts are being made to improve the sanitation system in the city. “This has become a massive issue. So MCQ is trying to improve the structure to overcome the problem,” he added.
