Daily Times

As there are rumours on the way regarding the formation of South Punjab province, with these rumours the first question which comes into mind is about its headquarter location. This upcoming province will comprise three divisions i. e. Bahawalpur, Multan, DG Khan and two districts of Sargodha division i. e. Bhakar and Mianawli. Some people consider that Bahawalpur must be nominated as headquarter because here reflects the true image of “Wasaib” and “Rohi”.

The second reason is that Bahawalpur was the first independent state to join Pakistan in 1955 and it is being managed as one unit. On the other side, some people consider Multan as true inherent of being Headquarters as it represents the true “Saraiki Culture”. Coming to the point this is not the issue that where the headquarter is going to be established the issue is that there is the dire need of some serious efforts to create a new province. We have many examples that managed their resources to draw a new province that yielded well thereafter.

Cutting the long story short when we are talking about South Punjab almost 220 kilometers far from Bahawalpur and Lahore there is a lost sandwich city namely Minchinabad. How ill-fated is the population of Minchinabad that Lahore considers it as South Punjab and South Punjab considers it as a lost city? This city is being treated as the stepson of South Punjab for many years. This city is attached to district Okara and district Pakpattan. Pakpattan is merely 30 kilometers away from this city but it takes 2 hours to reach there because of a dilapidated and dangerous road.

If we look at the health infrastructure it has only one Tehsil Headquarter Hospital which provides the only facility of referring patients to District Head Quarter Hospital as there are not enough staff and types of equipment to manage the population. Moving with the unfortunates people of Minchinabad if we talk about the educational infrastructure available in the city, I think it is the only tehsil of Punjab where even a purpose-built building of District Public School is not available. The last resort to attract attention is that this lost city must be nominated as the headquarter of South Punjab as it is the bridge towards Lahore and the true image of underprivileged and remote South Punjab.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Daily Times. The writer can be reached at waqasaleemthinker@gmail.com