Daily Times

Sir: A recent report about the state of urban waste management and cleanliness in Lahore was an eye opener. It is not that one is unaware of the garbage littering the streets, or the piles of refuse that lie decaying on street corners behind houses and in empty plots. These are now considered normal sights in the ironically named land of the pure. What was most disturbing in the report was the amount that is being spent by the government to set up ineffective state and semi-state run organisations that are supposed to keep Lahore clean. The Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) has an annual budget of Rs 12.5 billion that is being spent on new offices, public relations teams and fatuous, incompetent employees. Trash is still collected by poor, mostly Christian workers by hand and streets are swept with brooms if they are swept at all. In the poorer parts of the city the situation is far worse than in areas like Cantonment or Defence Housing Authority.

The company is a disgrace and has done no work in the city. It is a typical state-run enterprise and its management should be publicly humiliated for wasting public time and money. That they have the gall to claim that progress is being made is all the more reason to put them in the dock. Their nonsensical statistics cannot hide the evidence of our eyes.

KAISER CHAUDHRY

Lahore