Civic amenities for Saryab localities
Civic amenities for Saryab localities
Editorial
Editorial

Almost half of the population of this provincial capital is residing in surrounding localities of Saryab and still the human settlements are denied basic civic amenities and services by the Government in general and the Municipal authorities of the city.

Almost half of the population of this provincial capital is residing in surrounding localities of Saryab and still the human settlements are denied basic civic amenities and services by the Government in general and the Municipal authorities of the city.

It is true since the days Pakistan was created and Balochistan became part of the Pakistani Federation. Careerists served this city As Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners and Director-General Quetta Development Authority and they shown no interest to provide civic amenities to the people.

Ironically, there are six elected Chief Executives and a Governor is permanently residing in Saryab Road localities and they failed to serve their own people for unexplained reasons. No they ever prevailed on the local authorities to provide basic civic amenities and services to the large number of human settlements.

After publishing an editorial on the subject, the sitting Chief Minister summoned a meeting of high officials in which he issued an instruction to prepare a big scheme for Saryab extending the civic services of Quetta city to the Saryab areas. To this date, there is no report from the Planning and Development Department about the scheme.

The department is more interested in MPA and other schemes, including the unapproved ones. It had shown least interest in preparing plan to extend basic civic services to such a huge population of Quetta.

The scheme should be multipurpose providing civic services and amenities and also deal with resolving the perennial water shortage in Quetta city or making the city environment friendly by improving the municipal services.

It was suggested that there should be a grand truck line dealing with the drainage system ensuring a proper sewerage system for all the Saryab localities. The grand trunk line should cover the area from Hazar Ganji to the Aiwan-i-Kalat at the railway level crossing of Saryab.

The entire sewer water should be drain out through this grand truck line defending the city environment in a big way. The same system should be used technically for re-cycling of waste water as part of the scheme to conserve water and use the waste water for developing orchards and the needed green belt around Quetta producing vegetables and other primary products. The waste water should also be used for washing purposes, mainly washing cars and other vehicles instead of fresh water.

The most important use of waste water is for tree plantation which remained suspended decades ago due to serious water shortage. All the schemes and tree planted by the Provincial Forest Department had gone waste for lack of water. The local authorities can use the waste water for block forestation on all the open spaces available within the city centre so that corrupt and dishonest are deter from launch commercial project building commercial plazas instead of planting trees to improve the climate and making it environment friendly.

The Government should use the available space of the Habib Nullah for re-cycling the waste water first treating it and later on using for many purposes including in block forestation or roadside plantation making the provincial Capital more beautiful. The environmentalists and independent economists had already censured the move of the municipal leaders wasting public money by installing colourful lights at places where the gutters are constantly overflowing and the open drain lines are busting its banks polluting the entire city atmosphere.

The city centres are highly commercialized and left no room for further commercialization. The Chief Minister should veto such schemes from the municipal leaders to launch commercial projects on Government or Municipal land. There should be a tough resistance from the civil society, including the highly responsive Press, to such move to damage the environment further in lust for illicit wealth by the corrupt and dishonest.