KARACHI: The provincial government on Friday finally approved devolution of the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) to division level by forming separate boards, to be headed by mayors, for overseeing garbage management in Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur.

The decision to this effect was taken at the maiden meeting of the provincial steering committee of the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board, presided over by Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani and attended among others by the mayors of the three major cities of the province.

The proposal to set up separate autonomous garbage management bodies on district/divisional level, including Karachi, with the SSWMB as a policy formulation organisation was initially approved in Nov 2020 in the meeting of the coordination committee on federal projects in the province.

Separate boards headed by mayors to be formed for garbage management in cities

In this proposed arrangement, Karachi, Hyderabad, Larkana, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas and Shaheed Benazirabad would have separate solid waste management bodies for keeping the cities clean.

Later in Dec 2021, the Sindh Assembly passed an amended local government bill placing the Solid Waste Management Board under mayors of the metropolitan/municipal corporations in the province.

The amended laws allowed mayors in all divisional metropolitan municipal corporations to look after their functions in a bid to improve the performance of sanitation services.

According to the law, the SSWMBs will be established in divisional headquarters, including Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Mirpurkhas and Shaheed Benazirabad where the mayor of the metropolitan/municipal corporations will be the chairperson of the board while the commissioner of the area will work as vice-chairman with two other members.

According to the amended law, the divisional board may have authority to include any other area such as town committees, municipal committees adjacent to municipal corporation under its operational control.

It added that a steering committee will also be constituted under the supervision of local government minister with commissioners, secretary of local government, secretary of finance, concerned mayors and two each persons from academia and NGOs as its members to provide over all policy guidelines to the boards on various issues.

Earlier, the SSWMB was placed under the chief minister and later it was the local government minister, who was tasked with running its affairs.

Informed sources told Dawn that in the first phase separate boards were being set up for Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and Larkana.

They said that the boards to be set up for the three cities would comprise non-permanent members, including two technical members from the academia, one representative from the non-governmental organisations, and a person having technical expertise in the field of solid waste disposal.

The sources said that the steering committee was informed that no names had so far been recommended for setting up the board to oversee solid waste disposal work in Larkana.

They said that the meeting participants decided that the local government minister and the Larkana mayor would jointly finalise the names for setting up the board for the Larkana division.

The meeting of the steering committee was attended by Karachi Mayor Barrister Murtaza Wahab, Hyderabad Mayor Kashif Shoro, Sukkur Mayor Barrister Arsalan Islam Sheikh, additional chief secretary of local government Khalid Hyder Shah, Karachi additional commissioner-1 Sehar Iftikhar, SSWMB managing director Imtiaz Ali Shah, Vice-Chancellor of NED University of Engineering & Technology Prof Dr Sarosh Hashmat Lodi, local government department additional secretary Liquat Ali Bhatti, and other officials.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2024