SOMETHING radical is called for to deal with the garbage problem that swamps the entire country before it is completely buried under a sea of solid waste.

For decades, the city, town and village authorities have abdicated their role in the collection and disposal of solid waste, leaving it to either dissolve into thin air (difficult), be picked up by the kites and crows (to whom we owe much in the line of garbage disposal), munched by stray cattle and goats, stray dogs and cats, or collected by the large informal sector of rag-pickers, hundreds and thousands of them, who earn their livelihood from filtering and gathering waste and garbage from our streets, roads and open spaces..

It has been estimated that perhaps some 10 to 15 per cent only of the total amount of waste, filth and garbage casually discarded by some 160 millions who live in our over-crowded cities, towns and villages is disposed of in the above manner by our human, feathered and furred friends. The sanitation authorities probably collect a further 10 to 15 per cent, which leaves some 70 per cent polluting the country. A pathetic situation.

Now, how has our large neighbour, which is fast going places, tried to deal with its far vaster solid waste management problems? In 1996, a concerned citizen of Bangalore filed in the Supreme Court of India a public interest writ petition (No.888/1996, Almitra H Patel and another vs Union of India & Others) seeking expeditious directions from the court to the urban local bodies, the state governments and the government of India for the improvement of solid waste management in the class I cities (population over 100,000) of India.

The petition was heard and in January 1998 the Supreme Court (Chief Justice S K Verma) handed down its order : “....We consider it appropriate at this stage to constitute a committee and to specify the specific aspects which the committee is required to examine.... [It shall] look into all aspects of urban solid waste management, particularly : examine the existing practices and to suggest hygienic processing and waste disposal practices and proven technologies on the basis of economic feasibility and safety which the corporation/government may directly or indirectly adopt or sponsor.... Examine and suggest ways to improve conditions.... Review municipal bye-laws and the powers of local bodies and regional planning authorities and suggest necessary modifications... Examine and formulate standards and regulations for the management of urban solid waste and set time frames within which the authorities shall be bound to implement the same.”

The committee was directed to hand in its report not later than June 30, 1998. Eight members, including Almitra Patel, were appointed, and the ministry of urban development was instructed to provide all assistance, and it and the concerned state governments were to deal with any expenses incurred (which were later to be sorted out). The compilation of the report took rather longer that the court expected and after an extension was granted, the committee finally submitted it in March 1999.

What seems most strange and almost unbelievable to us over here in Pakistan is that the foreword to the report, written by the committee’s chairman, commissioner of the Calcutta municipal corporation Asim Barman, contained the following paragraph :

“I would like to place on record the assistance provided by the Government of India, Ministry of Urban Affairs and Employment for the deliberations of the committee and the state governments of West Bengal, Tamilnadu, and Maharashtra for the smooth conduct of the regional workshop.”

The likelihood is that any federal government in Pakistan and that in any of its provinces would have gone out of their way to hinder any such committee and ensure that any workshop had as rough a ride as possible.

The 150-page report is highly comprehensive, practical and its recommendations are doable. For any of our concerned citizens, or our city governments (should they be interested), I will be obtaining a copy of the report on a CD and will have it printed out for distribution. The recommendations it encompasses apply equally to Pakistan as to India — our problem being less as we are a smaller country with a smaller population. So it should be even simpler for our authorities to put it into practice.

In August 1999, the Supreme Court issued a comment on the report : “Pursuant to the last order passed by this court, most of the states have filed their response to the report of the committee. None of the states appear to be opposed to the recommendations which have been made and in fact the response of the states is positive.”

And in February 2000 a further comment : “We direct.... statutory authorities through their respective heads to ensure proper and scientific disposal of waste in a manner so as to subserve the common good. In this connection, they shall endeavour to comply with the suggestions and directions contained in the report prepared by the Asim Barman Committee.”

President General Pervez Musharraf is trying to wean us away from our India-centric idiosyncracy. However, in matters such as these which affect public interest and the health and welfare of the nation, we can do no better than emulate our friendly neighbour. What India can do, perhaps Pakistan now, with enlightenment and moderation to the fore, can do even better.

My late lamented friend, Omar Kureishi, that most honourable member of my fourth profession, is much missed. Columnist and cricket maestro, he was wont to refer to us Parsis as the ‘Kem chevos.’

Omar grew up amongst the Parsis of Bombay and never ceased to wonder why we always and inevitably greet each other with the query ‘Kem chevo?’ spoken by both at the same time with neither bothering to respond to the ‘How are you?’

Last week, friend Almitra Patel (nee Sidhwa) the environmentalist writ-filing ‘Kem chevo’ revisited Karachi and it was a pleasure talking to a truly enlightened person, so sure of herself and her knowledge (she holds an MS in engineering from MIT). I took her on a trip round our dug-up garbage-strewn city and seeing our Gandha Nalla, the Nahar-e-Khayyam, so horrified was she that on her return to Bangalore she intends to draw up plans as to how it can be converted into an amenable livable open space for the citizens of Karachi.

E-mail: arfc@cyber.net.pk