HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Sindh High Court Hyderabad circuit here on Tuesday directed the Hyder­abad divisional commissioner (DC) and deputy commissioner, Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) managing director and other officials to appear in person on July 18 at 11.30am before the court.

They are required to explain chlorination process of drinking water supplied by Wasa. They are directed to submit allocation of budget, the amount recovered within past two years and expenditures incurred on the repair of pipelines and drainage.

The bench, comprising Jus­tice Salahuddin Panhwar and Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry, has passed the order on a public interest litigation filed by Saj­jad Ahmed Chandio advocate. The court had passed the order on it on Sep 3, 2018. Irfan Ali Bughio advocate filed the power of attorney on behalf of the Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA).

The petitioner argued that the people of Hyderabad were compelled to drink filthy water as supply lines as well as drainage system were mixed because of illegal connections provided for commercial purposes.

He had cited Wasa officers, including its managing director, as respondents. In his petition, he prayed the court to direct respondent officers to provide clean drinking water to his house for which he was regularly paying bill. He requested the court to direct respondent Wasa officers to remove all illegal water supply lines and connections from Qasim­abad and the city.

He said the officers should be directed to submit list and num­bers of commercial connections provided in Qasim­abad Phase-1 and revenue collected from them.

He stated in his petition that since third week of July 2018, he and other residents of Qasim­­abad Phase-1 were getting polluted water.

He said he had informed the Wasa officers through text messages and phone calls and also shared pictures and video clips of quality of water being supplied by them.

He said the respondent officers were running a parallel business of water supply to tanker mafia. He said the residents were suffering due to negligence of the Wasa officers.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2019