HYDERABAD, Feb 6: Provincial Secretary for Environment and Alternative Energy Mir Hussain Ali has said that strict action will be taken against those who dispose of industrial toxic effluent into River Indus.

Presiding over a meeting here on Wednesday on supply of safe drinking water to the people of Hyderabad and downstream Kotri Barrage, he directed the management of industries to evolve a sustainable system for safe disposal of toxic effluent.

He ordered the Environment Protection Agency, Hyderabad, to conduct a survey of the institutions and organisations disposing toxic and polluted effluent into the river and prepare a plan for taking action against them.

He said a system should be evolved for regular monitoring and collection and testing of water samples should be accelerated.

Hyderabad District Coordination Officer Aftab Ahmed Khatri said sets of procedure had been prepared with the consultation of the stakeholders to ensure supply of safe drinking water.

He said the district government had hired the services of water technologists and consultants who were checking samples of drinking water six times a day. He said the quality of water in River Indus upstream Kotri Barrage was being checked regularly.

He said test checking of water upstream Kotri Barrage had shown that that many industries, power plants and pharmaceutical companies were affecting the water quality in River Indus by disposing of untreated toxic effluent waste in it.

He said disposal of toxic effluent of Kotri industrial units was also polluting water in the KB Feeder.

He said the Sindh government had given Rs500 million to the Kotri Association of Trade and Industry for installing a treatment plant.

He said the association had installed an oxidation plant but it was ineffective because of retention of effluent in it for 48 hours as the material passed on because of low capacity.

He said that the efforts of district government to ensure supply of safe drinking water would succeed when the causes of pollution were removed.

Sukkur Barrage Irrigation Chief Engineer Atta Soomro said the Right Bank Outfall Drainage project had been completed and its management was releasing water from Manchhar Lake into River Indus only at critical times under the SOPs prepared in consultation with the district government and all other stakeholders.

He said that toxic effluent of Main Nara Valley Drain was being linked with the RBOD project. It was scheduled to be competed by June 2008 but it would be delayed for a year because of technical reasons.

Public Health Engineering Chief Engineer Mohammad Siddique Jalalani stressed the need for integrated planning with awareness.

In reply to a question by the environment secretary about disposal of effluent from the city into Phulelli Canal, Water and Sewerage Authority Managing Director Sharif Awan said work on the southern water treatment plant in Qasimabad was in progress, while the northern treatment plant was functioning.

He said work on a scheme to channel the city’s effluent towards the northern treatment plant over Phulelli C anal was in progress and it was likely to be completed in a month.