Mumtaz Ahmed Bhatti
Public Health Engineering Department is very important because the duties of this department are to provide clean drinking water to the public and to ensure drainage of sewage water from residential areas. After visiting PHED projects in all four provinces, Azad Jammu Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, I am writing with the conviction that Public Health Engineering Department Sindh is performing best. Despite lack of resources, heavy rains and floods. During this flood period, all officers from top to bottom worked hard day and night to immediately remove water from the residential areas and kept maximum water supply and sewerage schemes functional. PHED Sindh’s struggle during the heavy flood was admirable and appreciated at all levels.
A wrong perception has been spread about PHED like all departments of Sindh government that development projects in Sindh are completed only in files while they do not exist on the ground. I am an eye witness that this perception is completely wrong and It is contrary to the facts. PHE departments of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan are reluctant to allow media persons to visit their development schemes, but PHED Sindh not only provides full facilities to media persons but also welcomes those who wish to make surprise visits. do Many latest and expensive reverse osmosis (RO) water plants installed in Sindh are supplying water to the people through all the water plants. Ultrafiltration water plants have been installed in many cities of Sindh, so latest and expensive water filtration plants have not been installed in any other province, not even in Islamabad. There are often news about Thar that there is the worst water crisis there.
I visited Umarkot, Mithi and surrounding rural areas and saw that water is being brought to people’s homes through water supply schemes in rural areas. In the houses where water is not reaching through the water supply scheme, people are taking it from the water supply scheme according to their needs. Only in Sindh have oxidation ponds been constructed along with all the sewage schemes. Sewage water is pumped to oxidation ponds and sewage water passes through various oxidation ponds and after treatment is used for irrigation purposes. During the visit, I saw that high quality motors, pumps, electric panels and pipes of approved companies from the government of Sindh have been installed in the cities of Sindh and even in rural areas. Even before visiting Sindh, I was under the wrong perception that the development work in Sindh is only done in the files and not on the ground, massive corruption is spread everywhere, but when I visited, I understood that the engineers of PHED are working hard and working diligently.
I reached Sukkur for the purpose of a visit to write about the development schemes of PHED in Sindh.
At that time, Chief Engineer Sukkur Region Barkat Ali Khawaja was busy working in his office with his subordinates. It was already ten o’clock at night. Chief Engineer Barkat Ali Khawaja working late at night made it clear that he is not at all used to leaving today’s work for tomorrow. It became clear immediately after meeting him that he is well-mannered and sociable. I visited the cities of Hyderabad and Sukkur region, Sukkur, Larkana, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Kandhkot, Dadu, Qamber Shahdadkot, Khairpur, Ranipur, Nawabshah, Hyderabad, Matiari, Jamshoro, Nowshero Feroze in all areas.All SEs, Executive Engineers, Assistant Engineers and Sub Engineers were performing their duties with diligence and dedication. Earlier, I visited PHED works in Punjab, KP & Balochistan, but the better quality of work of PHED Sindh left all three provinces behind. Chief Engineer Sukkur Region Barkat Ali Khawaja has the best performance among the Chief Engineers of PHED in all of Pakistan. By visiting the development work of PHED in Sindh, the wrong perception in the mind got over and it also became clear that the engineers of Sindh who are being maligned the most are actually the same engineers of Sindh who are performing best.