Committee grills MCI over poor performance in Islamabad

Abdullah Malik

ISLAMABAD: The Senate panel on climate change annoyed on the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) while not preparing a comprehensive report over the solid waste management settlement and identifying dumping sites in the country capital adding that due to the zero performance the legacy of Islamabad has been ruined.

The meeting was chaired by Senator Sitara Ayaz while officials from the MCI and State Minister for climate change Zartaj Gul Wazir also attended the meeting.

The committee noted that the MCI till yet didn’t clarify their position that in which sites the solid waste of the capital is adjusting and the whole capital is full of garbage.

The committee lamented on the absence of the Mayor Islamabad Sheikh Ansr Aziz while the Minister for climate change told in a media talk that capital has been ruined due to no planning but the mayor is enjoying in London with their bosses.

Senator Sherry Rehman suggested that if the city managers are not performing their duties they should be abolished immediately.

She added that Islamabad is the capital of the country but the administrators have no performance to make the city clean and green free of garbage and no one is serious on this issue not CDA & MCI neither the ministry of climate change. She added that whole capital is polluted due to the mushroom growth of bricks Kilns but no one is ready to accept responsibility neither the government have any capability to run the day to day affairs.

The committee chaired noted that we are dumping the solid waste of hospitals and have no recycling process which have negative on consequences on human being and environment. She added that the city administration has no capacity to digest the solid waste through dumping and the dumping process is also not satisfactory.

Ministry argued that we started work for adjusting garbage of the capital but MCI went to court and argued that ministry are interfering in their internal affairs. 

The committee asked from MCI officials whether they have any plan for recycling the solid waste management of the Islamabad on which the MCI official responded that they will prepare a report in next two days in which we will elaborate our work for settling solid waste of the capital.

The state minister while responding to Sherry Rehman queries added that for the first time in country history we have converted 12 bricks kilns on environment free technology and no other government worked on this.

DG Environmental Protection Agency Farazana Altaf responded that in federal capital this time around 63 bricks kilns are operating and we are sensitizing them to convert their kilns on environment friendly (ZIGZAG) technology to get rid of diverse impacts of climate change. She added that this time in whole country 15000-20000 bricks kilns are operating which will be converted to Zig zag technology and we have started from Islamabad.

Minister Zartaj Gul added that this technology is costly and need four million rupees for installing zig zag technology.

She added that the owners haven’t that much funds and government will facilitate owners for installing this technology.

The committee stressed that EPA and MCI should work together and form a comprehensive plan for digesting garbage of the capital.