PA resolution calls for declaring Sept 7 as Youm-e-Khatm-e-Nubuwwat in Sindh

The Sindh Assembly on Monday unanimously passed a resolution calling upon the provincial government to officially declare September 7 as Yaum-e-Khatam-e-Nubuwwat in the province in commemoration of the National Assembly’s unanimous decision 50 years back to declare the Ahmadi community as non-Muslims.

The resolution to this effect was moved in the House by a lawmaker from the Jamaat-e-Islami, Muhammad Farooq. The resolution mentioned that September 7, 1974, was the day of culmination of the years-long struggle of Muslims when the National Assembly had passed a constitutional amendment to declare the Ahmadi community non-Muslims as per the fundamental Islamic belief of Khatm-e-Nubuwwat.

The mover of the resolution in his speech paid tribute to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani, Maulana Syed Abul Ala Maududi, and other religious and political leaders for their active role in the protection of the belief of Khatam-e-Nubuwwat in Pakistan.

Other lawmakers also spoke on the resolution and also praised the role of these political and religious leaders for reaching a unanimous decision in the National Assembly to uphold the Islamic belief of Khatm-e-Nubuwwat in the country.

Waste issue

Meanwhile, Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani informed the House that no union committee (UC) or town municipal corporation in Karachi possessed the authority to allow any private service provider to collect waste on a door-to-door basis in their jurisdiction and the permissions issued to this effect were illegal.

He stated this while responding to the queries of lawmakers during the question hour of the Sindh Assembly’s session. Answering queries of the legislators, Ghani said the private service providers involved in the lifting of garbage in Karachi had assumed the shape of a mafia as they posed a serious civic problem in the city.

He said that these private persons sorted out the municipal waste after its collection to retrieve precious items while the rest of the trash was carelessly disposed of in storm drains in the city.

Ghani informed the House that he had put forth the suggestion that a system should be developed for door-to-door waste collection in the city with the involvement of the relevant UC. He said launching such a waste-lifting system would also generate financial resources for the UCs. He said the private persons involved in door-to-door waste collection should be stopped.

He suggested that courts should be established in future to enforce the laws related to the functions of the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) in the city. He informed the lawmakers that waste disposal work had improved in Karachi since the SSWMB had started functioning but more had to be done on this front.

The local government minister also informed the House that work had been in progress to build four out of five garbage transfer stations (GTS) the SSWMB had to construct in the city on a scientific basis to fully take care of the environmental conditions of the surrounding areas. He said work on the Sohrab Goth GTS was yet to commence due to a land-related issue.

Ghani informed the legislators that work had started to expand the capacity of the Hub canal from supplying 70 million gallons of water per day (MGD) to 100 MGD. He said another project had been launched to build a new canal to bring an additional 100 MGD of water from the Hub Dam to Karachi.

The local government minister said that work had been in progress simultaneously on four different components of the K-IV bulk water supply project as this scheme was likely to be commissioned by April 2027.

Ghani informed the House that Rs14 billion would be required to complete the S-III sewage treatment project as the Sindh government had allocated Rs3 billion for the project in the current year.

He said that at present, the project had been merely treating 35MGD of wastewater before its disposal into the sea instead of its total 180 MGD treatment capacity. Answering another question, Ghani said numerous development schemes having cost of billions of rupees to build a sewerage system in District Central of Karachi had been completed in the past four years. He conceded that problems related to malfunctioning of the sewerage system had emerged in inner city streets following monsoon rains not just in District Central but in the entire Karachi. He explained that in the first phase the damaged main roads in Karachi were being repaired as reviving the sewerage system beneath them would help restore the inner streets in Karachi.