KARACHI: The Sindh chief secretary, the local government secretary and the North Sindh Urban Services Corporation’s director general and others will have to explain their failure in providing basic necessities in the province’s eight districts as the Supreme Court has issued them notices on Wednesday to turn up.
Advocate Shahab Usto had petitioned the apex court seeking directives to the authorities to provide potable drinking water and clean environment to the people in Sindh province.
He named the provincial chief secretary, the secretaries of the local government, health and development departments, managing-director of the NSUSC and others as the respondents.
The petitioner, who has hailed from district Shikarpur, submitted that the Sindh government had created the NSUSC in 2009-10 for delivering clean water supply, sewerage and solid waste services in a safe, efficient and effective manner in eight districts of the upper Sindh including Sukkur, New Sukkur, Rohri, Khairpur, Larkana, Shikarpur, Jacobabad and Ghorki.
He said that the organization was created by obtaining loan of Rs500 million dollars from the Asia Development Bank, but the same has not benefited the public at large in these districts. Instead the subsoil water has further been contaminated.
Usto told the judges that the provincial government has failed to provide drinking water to the public in the upper and lower parts of the province. “Instead the subsoil water, which the locals of these districts had to consume, is contaminated and not fit for the human consumption.”
A two-judge bench comprising Justice Amir Hani Muslim and Faisal Arab took up the matter at the Supreme Court’s Karachi registry.
They observed that the issue raised is in question of public importance, which has direct nexus with the fundamental rights of the residents of Sindh living not only in eight districts, but also in the lower Sindh.
According to the petitioner the issues involved, inter alia, relate to the violation of the fundamental rights of the people of Shikarpur and Sindh, violation of the doctrine of public trust, degradation of environment, conserving the underground water/aquifer, supplying clean water to the citizens, providing an efficient sanitation and solid waste material disposal management to the people of Shikarpur and other parts of Sindh, protection of public life and atmosphere from the irreversible effects of contamination of underground water and fixing responsibility on the lapse or failure of discharging statutory and constitutional duties and functions to provide citizens of their fundamental rights to receive water and to live in a healthy environment.
The court issued notices to the respondents as well as the advocate-general directing them to be in attendance on the next date with their concise replies as the issues raised have direct bearing on the health of hundreds of thousands of citizens of Sindh.
The hearing was put off till Dec 27.
