KARACHI: Mayor Karachi Wasim Akhtar has said there are 500 small drains under the administrative control of District Municipal Corporation (DMCs) and no funds were issued for their cleaning.
He said there was dire need to resolve the city’s issues on an urgent basis. Laws could be amended and special package should be announced for Karachi, he added.
Wasim Akhtar further said that cleaning of drains was not a permanent solution as the garbage was still being dumped in nullahs across the city, adding that “This issue would persist until garbage disposal system is upgraded.”
He said that only Rs. 500 million was issued to KMC for the drains’ cleaning in the last four years and details of its expenditures were already given to the Sindh government.
Akhtar alleged that the “Sindh government is not providing full development funds to the KMC since the last four years, which is why 400 projects have been affected”.
He also denied that the funds were issued to KMC every year for cleaning of drains, adding that the situation of drains in Karachi was miserable as they were full of garbage.
The Mayor was of the view that the KMC did not have resources to clean the drains from its own resources, urging the provincial government to release funds for the task.