After unprecedented monsoon spells in the megacity communicable diseases are on a sharp rise and an urgent municipal emergency is needed in its all districts to save the lives of citizens, especially women and children, said Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor here.
He said urban floods, water logging and collapse of drainage system has resulted in the spread of infectious illnesses and all government and private hospitals and clinics are witnessing a huge rush of patients.
He said the Post-rains diseases like vector-borne dengue, chikungunya and malaria and gastrointestinal diseases like typhoid, cholera and stomach infections have become a serious healthcare threat in the megacity.
He said the solid waste collection sector is the worst performing sector in Karachi. He said despite private contractors extorting huge taxpayers money from the Sindh government, they don’t collect garbage from the megacity. He said the nexus of contractors and corrupt bureaucracy has put the healthcare of the citizens at stake. He said the KMC and DMC have become dens of corruption as political workers employed in them without merit purely on political grounds do not work and just draw their salaries. He said despite the court orders no action is seen to purge these departments from these political employees.
He said that the recent rains have not only exposed the vulnerable civic infrastructure of the megacity, but also the zenith of bad governance in the Sindh government as well as the KMC and DMCs. He said many streets in low lying neighborhoods have still been converted into pools of gutter-mixed contaminated rainwater that is providing good breeding grounds to mosquitoes and houseflies and helping spread communicable diseases in Karachi.
Altaf Shakoor demanded immediate municipal emergency in the megacity to lift heaps of garbage, to open choked drainage lines and to dewater accumulated rainwater from different localities, especially slums.
