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Published 29 Nov, 2011 07:37am

Pakistan's first biological treatment plant

Majeed Keerio is a small village in the outskirts of Nawabshah, where local residents for the last 700 years have mainly worked as farmers or livestock herders. A few years ago, through the prime minister's programme, a drainage system was constructed in the village. Suddenly the village's narrow streets were lined with open drains that were meant to take away dirty waste water from homes into proper waste water treatment plants. This never happened. Due to mismanagement and corruption, these open drains soon became clogged with plastic bags, over flowing every time it rained and pooling up outside homes. Fed-up of these pools of stagnant water, a site for countless diseases and dangers, a local NGO decided to take action. Ameen Keryo, is the CEO of Sindhica Reforms Society, and with help from UN Habitat and WWF-Pakistan he set up Pakistan's first biological waste water treatment plant. A low energy, completely natural water treatment plant, which is in wide use in Australia and Europe, has finally been introduced in Pakistan. Although, hoping to do good with this treatment plant, Keryo and his teams still face the ire of villagers who complain that drains still get blocked and overflow into their homes. Keryo's response is that it is not his NGO's responsibility to clean up the drainage system rather the local government must step in. Although water is being treated, there is a need for communication with local government and villagers to fix a drainage system that was constructed and left to decay in Majeed Keerio. In the meantime, Keryo and his team, continue to treat as much waste water as they can from the village into clean water enough to water two acres of farming fields. They have also set the groundwork for 14 more biological treatment plants across Pakistan and hope to have them competed by 2013.
In this video, Keryo explains how the entire system works. – Sara Faruqi/Dawn.com
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