The Supreme Court on Wednesday once again directed the water and power secretary, Sindh irrigation secretary, and other provincial authorities to apprise it of whether or not the funds required for installing a treatment plant to treat sewerage water being dumped into Manchar Lake were made available.
A three-member bench comprising Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Sarmad Jalal Usmani and Maqbool Baqar heard the matter involving growing contamination of Manchar Lake at the apex court’s Karachi registry.
During Wednesday’s hearing, the authorities informed the court that as yet no sewerage treatment plant was installed due to lack of funds and therefore untreated effluent was being released into the lake. They added that Rs 8 billion were required to install a treatment plant.
The judges observed that disposal of polluted water into the lake was not only destroying the beauty of the lake but also depriving fishermen of their livelihood. They said the toxic water was adversely affecting the marine life and causing ecological disaster. The court once again issued notice to the authorities concerned to inform it about whether the funds required for installing a sewerage treatment plant had been released.
Earlier, the court had ordered the Sindh chief secretary and Wapda officials to come out with a solution to control disposal of effluent into the lake. Former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had taken a suo motu notice of the contamination of Manchhar Lake because of disposal of toxic untreated sewerage from RBOD (Right Bank Outfall Drain) into the lake.
