Daily Times

MULTAN: The district administration, on Friday, successfully completed the cleanliness drive on the occasion of Eidul Azha. The Deputy Commissioner (DC) Multan, Mudassir Riaz Malik, while addressing the concluding ceremony of the cleanliness drive at the Clock Tower, stated that the field officers and around 2100 sanitary workers of the waste management company were given additional salaries as bonus for making exemplary cleanliness arrangements and providing hygienic environment to the citizens on the occasion of Eidul Azha.

The DC further informed that 450 sanitary workers were hired temporarily to maintain cleanliness on the Eid. He said that a complete ban was imposed on the banned outfits for the collection of hides and only those organizations which obtained the No Objection Certificate (NOC) were allowed to collect the hides.

He informed that the district government imposed ban on throwing animal waste and offal at the public places including private housing colonies, cantonment board, railway colonies and other places. He told that special plastic bags were distributed among the citizens and the direction was issued to place those bags outside their homes which were later collected by the workers of the waste management company.

The waste management company also dug two 100-feet-deep ditches with 100 feet width and similar length at Habiba Siyal for the disposal of offal and animal waste. Limestone, phenyl and kerosene oil were sprayed over these ditches after the burial of the animal waste. Over 200 vehicles were utilized by the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) for the collection of disposable bags, offal and animal waste from 68 urban union councils and over 8000 tons of animal waste was disposed outside the city in the ditches. Ahmad Ajmal, the spokesman of Jamat ud Dawa- a religious welfare organisation, told the media that the banned outfits were not allowed to collect animal hides in Punjab and all over the country. He further told that only those organizations that were certified by the government were allowed to collect hides.

District Government Spokesman, Waseem Yousaf, told that the government started awareness campaign in which stalls were set up in different union councils and door-to-door campaign was successfully carried out by the volunteers and the workers of the district government. He further said that the teams arranged awareness sessions and advised the citizens not to give hides to unregistered religious seminaries.

He added that the District Government also imposed section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), banning the burning of sacrificial animals’ heads and torts at roadsides. He told that a complete ban was imposed on throwing offal in drains, sewerage manholes and pipelines and a special task force, comprising additional deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners, was formulated for the inspection of cleanliness in the city. The District Government also issued a complaint number for the registration of complaints in case of any violation of the orders issued by the government, he added.

In the concluding ceremony, the DC announced one month advance salary for the sanitary workers. He appreciated the efforts of the sanitary workers and officials for providing relief to the citizens. He told that the sanitary workers washed the important highways, roads and main points of the city to keep the environment clean. He also announced better health facilities for the sanitary workers and assured them that their issues would be resolved immediately.

Published in Daily Times, August 25^th 2018.