New Delhi, Jan 23 (IANS): The staff of a Chinese garbage company are being targeted in Pakistan's Karachi by what the company suspects are informal garbage pickers, who face a loss of livelihood, Samaa TV reported.

GanSu Construction Investment Heavy Industry Technology won the contract for free door-to-door garbage collection from households in Korangi near Karachi and started work December 24. Barely a month into its operations, they started facing problems.

"The 'kachra mafia' which was active in the area before the company's operation started targeting the team members," speculated Shafqat Hussain, a GanSu media coordinator. Their identity could not be ascertained, the report said.

"For two days, the staffers have been targeted and beaten by some unidentified attackers," he said. "They attacked the team with clubs and rods in Korangi."

The company has been in touch with the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board. GanSu's teams consist of supervisors, drivers, sweepers and sanitation staff. The SSWMB just monitors performance.

On July 19, the Sindh government, through the SSWMB, signed two separate agreements with Chinese and Spanish firms to lift and dump 3,500 tons of garbage from districts Korangi and Central from the second week of August, the report said.

The solid waste management operation for Korangi has been assigned to GanSu. Korangi generates 1,920 tons of garbage daily. The Chinese firm would deploy 2,000 sanitary workers and mobilise 500 sanitary machines to collect and dump the garbage at landfill sites.