ISLAMABAD-At a time when the government is announcing environmental protection initiatives, a bio-remediation system installed on the ‘nullahs’ passing through Roses and Jasmine Garden for treatment of wastewater has turned into an ugly place due to its complete failure.
Constant stay of water without treatment in already-constructed ponds to refine wastewater creates more pollution and smell in the park instead of providing useable water for agricultural purposes.
It was envisioned at the launch of this project that the phase-wise completion of this project will bring significant improvement in environmental conditions in capital, but nothing could be achieved except spending public money on this project.
Now, both the organisations are shifting responsibility of failure on each other and nobody is willing to run this system, which was initiated with high optimism by then management of Capital Development Authority (CDA). Bio-remediation is a waste management technique that involves use of organisms to neutralise pollutants from a contaminated site.
The work in the first phase was commenced in the ‘nullahs’ passing through Rose and Jasmine Garden in May 2014.
It was planned to plant aquatic plants capable of diluting pollution in the nullahs passing through Rose and Jasmine Garden.
The water flowing through these nullahs contains toxic elements. 10 ponds were constructed to eliminate these toxic elements,.
The water rich in toxic materials was supposed to be treated in these ponds through aquatic plants and after making it toxic free; the water was to pour into nullahs again whereas the bad smell of water was also expected to be eliminated. It was planned as per project that the treated water will be used for agriculture purposes.
But the whole project becomes useless instead of development of ponds as nobody in Capital Development Authority and National Agriculture Research Council (NARC) is willing to take the responsibility to run this project.
Currently, pounds are available but no aquatic plants have been planted. Resultantly, the smell of water has increased due to constant stay of water in these ponds.
When contacted, Director Environment MCI Irfan Niazi said that the matter pertains to Parks Directorate of the MCI while the Director Parks MCI Syed Manzoor Shah expressed his lack of knowledge about the project and referred towards one of his subordinate who was unavailable to respond besides repeated attempts.
“The process of bio-remediation is cheap and cost effective as compared to other commonly used conventional physical and chemical methods for the treatment of domestic and industrial wastewater, but we did not maintain this project which is unfortunate and high ups of civic body needs to intervene and save this project”, an officer of MCI’s environment Wing commented on the condition of anonymity.