MIRPURKHAS - Over 700,000 people of Mirpurkhas City have been drinking contaminated water for the last two years, as the Municipal Committee is not chlorinating the reservoirs where drinking water is stored before supply to the city.
Jawad Ahmed Khan, the man in charge of the water supply scheme in Mirpurkhas, said on Tuesday that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had provided sufficient quantity of sodium hypochlorite for chlorination of drinking water in 2005-06. He said that sodium hypochlorite stocks ended in the beginning of 2015 and after that the Municipal Committee did not buy the water purifying chemical. Therefore, he said, people were forced to drink contaminated water.
Chief Municipal Officer Shafique Ahmed Shah said, “We have written to a chemical company to supply us sodium hypochlorite for purification of drinking water.
The chlorination process will be resumed after an agreement with the company is signed.” He said that a sodium hypochlorite sample was obtained from the company a few weeks ago to check its quality. He expressed the hope that the chlorination process would resume within a month.
mango festival
The purpose of the mango festival is to introduce different varieties of mango and get them to the international market, says Shafique Ahmed Mahesar, divisional commissioner of Mirpurkhas.
He was presiding over a meeting of the management committee of the mango festival that reviewed arrangements for the three-day annual Mango and Summer Fruits Festival here on Tuesday.
The festival is scheduled to take place from June 9-11 at the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Mango Exhibition Hall. The meeting was attended by Mirpurkhas Deputy Commissioner Zahid Hussain Memon, Chairman of Management Committee Haji Umer Bughio, members SA Khan and Fazal Illahi Memon, Deputy Director of Agriculture Extension Abdul Razzaque Baloch, Gohram Baloch, Assistant Director for Social Welfare Junaid Mirza and Deputy Director for Information Ghulam Raza Khoso.
The commissioner said that small farmers would get an opportunity at the mango festival to know more about modern techniques to increase shelf life of mango for exports.
The meeting decided that a family festival, a sports competition and Na’at competition would also be held at the mango festival.
The meeting discussed in detail the plan to hold the mango festival at the national level. Giving details of the arrangements, Deputy Commissioner Zahid Hussain Memon said that sub-committees had been formed to celebrate this event in a better way. He said that 20 Umra tickets would be given to people participating in the Na’at ceremony at the mango festival.