Daily Times

LAHORE: The beautifully decorated painting walls along Main Boulevard Gulberg have become dumping sites due to lack of attention by the district administration and the Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC).

Several points on the Main Boulevard are scruffy; especially decorated walls at Liberty Roundabout and Zahoor Elahi Road Intersection are gathering dust with the passage of time.

These walls were decorated under the wall painting campaign – an initiative taken in a meeting of a steering committee constituted by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. The City District Government Lahore (CDGL) in collaboration with the National Collage of Arts (NCA) had started a wall painting campaign titled ‘Art on the Roads’ in connection with the Pakistan Day and spring festival. But, unfortunately the campaign proved to be a nine days’ wonder.

Talking to Daily Times, local people held general public and the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) responsible for this failure.

LWMC Gulberg Area Manger Murtaza Chaudry told Daily Times that waste material of under-construction plazas and commercial areas sometimes got accumulated along the road, which could not be removed by the LWMC.

He said road expansion project and digging for new sites resulted in piles of debris along the road. “But our teams are fully active to maintain cleanliness in this area and its surroundings,” he said, adding that several people had been challaned for violating solid waste management bylaws, particularly those who do not maintain cleanliness at public places. “Now they would be dealt with iron hand,” he assured. To a question, he said removal of green waste was not a responsibility of the LWMC. He said that he would personally visit the sites, which had been identified.

Meanwhile, Parks and Horticulture Authority Director General Mian Shakeel Ahmed told Daily Times that the authority was timely removing tree branches and waste from green belts, but sometimes the LESCO staff cut the tree branches without informing them.

When contacted, District Coordination Office (DCO) spokesman Imran Maqbool, he did not respond to repeated calls on his cell phone.