Karachi The Sindh government has nominated the provincial chief secretary (CS) as the chairman of the newly established Sindh Solid Waste Management Board. The Sindh Solid Waste Management Board Act-2013 was adopted by the provincial assembly in February this year, paving the way for establishing a centralised provincial authority for overseeing solid waste management affairs of the major urban centres while divesting these powers back from the municipal bodies. According to a notification issued by Sindh CS Sajjad Saleem Hotiana, the government has nominated the CS on behalf of the chief minister as the chairman of the board in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 4(1) of the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board Act-2013. The CS also issued a separate notification for establishing the 15-member board. The members would comprise managing-director and four executive directors who would be appointed by the government from the private sector or from the officers working under the control of the government. The ex-officio members of the board include Additional Chief Secretary (Development) or his nominee; secretary Local Government, Public Health Engineering, Town Planning and Rural Development or his representative; secretary Industries or his representative; secretary Finance or his representative; secretary Katchi Abadis or his representative; secretary Environment or his representative; the mayor of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation or of other municipal corporations, chairman of district municipal corporations, municipal committees and town committees, whosoever is required; president Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industries or his nominee; director Military Lands & Cantonments Karachi Region or his nominee; and administrator Defence Housing Authority Karachi or his nominee. The secretary of the waste management body would also act as the secretary of the board. The secretaries of the departments or their representatives should not be below the rank of additional secretary. The powers and functions of the provincial government-run solid waste board include the right over solid waste related issues, assets, funds, and liabilities of the district councils and possessing sole rights on all kinds of solid waste within the limits of all councils. The board will have the authority to grant permission to individuals, institutions, industries, factories, workshops, furnaces, compost making, and the units generating power from solid waste to segregate the recyclable material from the waste, as well as their collection, treatment, sale and purchase, and recycling or disposal of any kind of waste. It is likely that the Sindh Local Government Department would notify the date for the transfer of the functions from the district councils to the board through official notification. And during the transition period, the existing operation of solid waste management would be kept continuing by the district councils. The board would also recommend levying tax or cess for running solid waste management affairs of the province. The bill for the waste management board was adopted by the Sindh Assembly at its session on February 10 when the lawmakers of the opposition Muttahida Qaumi Movement had walked out of the house to protest against an earlier arbitrary arrest of one of the party activists. If the opposition lawmakers were present in the house, they would have opposed the bill while contending that the proposed legislation would be a step forward in the way of further weakening the powers of local bodies of the province, which otherwise required autonomy in financial and administrative affairs in accordance with Article 140-A of the constitution. Speaking in the house during the February 7 session, MQM’s deputy parliamentary leader Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hassan had said that the upcoming legislation in the house for establishing the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board, if adopted, would take back the powers and functions of solid waste management from the municipal bodies of the province, which would be a sheer injustice with the local government institutions, as it seemed that this legislation would render the local bodies powerless just to perform the functions merely related to traffic control in their respective jurisdictions. He had said that more and more powers were being unduly vested in the office of Sindh chief minister including those authorities which as per the Constitution should rest with the municipal bodies of the province. However, opposition MPAs belonging to the PTI and PML-N had supported the proposed b bill during the February 10 session, hoping it would resolve the civic issue of garbage disposal in major cities of the province, which otherwise had been creating serious health and environmental issues for the citizens.
