Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has approved remodeling of MahmoodabadNullah in the first phase and then the rest of nullahs of the city would be developed accordingly. “We have to resolve this issue for good so that urban floods could be brought to an end in the city.” This he said while presiding over a meeting to review the study of MahmoodabadNullah conducted by NED University here on Thursday at the CM House. The meeting was attended by Provincial ministers, Saeed Ghani, Nasir Shah, Advisor law Murtaza Wahab, Chairman P&D M. Wasseem, Administrator Karachi IftikharShahalwani, VC NED University DrSaroshLodhi, Secretary Local Government Najam Shah and others. The VC NED briefing the chief minister said that the hydrological regime of the region, MahmoodabadNullah’s catchment area, spread over 19.03 square kilometers. Most of the artificially constructed waste water drains were discharging into the MahmoodabadNullah, including a section of DHA drainage network of 2.96 km. The CM was told that the MahmoodabadNulla which started from Korangi Road to Fire station was originally 3.57 km in length. Its width varies at different places from 2.3 meter to 37.5 meters. The existing level of Mahmoodabad drain was too deep at some spots and hardly a few feet deep at other spots. The chief minister said that the government would construct an 80-meter channel of the MahmoodabadNulla so that variation of the depth and width could be made properly so that flow of water could be ensured in natural gravity. Mr Shah directed the NED University team to conduct a parallel study whether a separate drainage channel may be constructed along the MahmoodabadNullah for disposal of waste water or only construction of a conduit would be enough to drain out sewerage water in the same nullah. It was pointed out that usually 55 cusecs of waste water was flowing into the Mahmoodabadnulla, therefore it could be used as storm water drainage by further widening it. However, a pumping station may be installed to pump out rain water, whenever it rained in the city heavily. The CM directed Minister Local Government Syed Nasir Shah to prepare a plan to install a pumping station and a treatment plant at the end of the nullah where it was terminating into the sea.
