LAHORE: Sewage has spread onto the roads of Karim Block Market in Allama Iqbal Town after the failure of the area’s sewerage system, causing severe difficulty for residents, traders and visitors to the market.
According to residents, sewage has been standing on the road for several days because the sewerage lines are blocked, and a stench is spreading through the area.
Because of the dirty water, citizens are facing difficulty in movement, and people coming to the market have to wade through the water to reach the shops.
Traders say business activity is also being affected by the accumulation of sewage water on the roads. Despite the passage of several days without a resolution, traders and residents remain concerned.
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Karim Block is one of the busier commercial concentrations in Allama Iqbal Town, drawing customers from across the surrounding blocks. Footfall at a neighbourhood market of this kind is highly sensitive to access conditions — customers who cannot reach a shop without wading simply shop elsewhere, and the loss is not recovered once the blockage is cleared.
Standing sewage in a commercial area carries risks beyond inconvenience. Untreated wastewater in a location where food is sold and handled creates a direct contamination pathway, and prolonged pooling provides breeding conditions for mosquitoes.
The timing is significant. Lahore’s dengue transmission season extends through the post-monsoon period, and the city’s surveillance and larviciding effort is built around eliminating standing water. A persistent pool of stagnant water in a high-footfall commercial area works directly against that effort.
Sewage exposure also carries risk of skin infection and of gastrointestinal illness where contaminated water reaches food preparation surfaces or drinking water lines through cross-connection.
Sewerage failures of this type in Lahore’s older planned neighbourhoods typically arise from a combination of causes: lines laid for a residential density long since exceeded, the discharge of solid waste and cooking grease into the network by commercial premises, and deferred desilting.
Allama Iqbal Town was developed as a planned residential scheme, and its sewerage network was sized for the residential land use of that era. Commercial conversion of ground floors along market streets substantially increases both the volume and the solids content of the discharge without any corresponding upgrade to the pipe capacity beneath.
Sewerage and drainage in Lahore fall under the Water and Sanitation Agency, which operates the disposal stations, trunk sewers and local networks and maintains complaint channels for blockages.
The Lahore Times has sought comment from WASA on the status of the Karim Block blockage, on whether a desilting operation has been scheduled, and on whether the failure is localised or reflects a capacity issue on the trunk line serving the area. The response will be carried when received.
Residents have asked that the line be cleared and that a maintenance schedule be put in place to prevent recurrence.
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