Daily Times

LAHORE: Lahore Development Authority (LDA), besides serving written warnings to two directors, has suspended nine officials due to public complaints against them on account of inefficiency, negligence and corruption.

LDA Director General Nabeel Javeed has ordered for the suspension of two LDA Town Planning Wing assistant directors, Salman Raza and Tayyab Ali. The other suspended officials included two sub-engineers (survey) Muhammad Azam Javed and Muhammad Naveed Yousaf, four record keepers namely Muhammad Amin, Hafeez Ahmad, Syed Mehtab Ali and Zahurud Din and one senior clerk, Naseem Iqbal. The authority has also issued strict written warnings to LDA Town Planning Directors Syed Nadeem Akhtar Zaidi and Rai Muhammad Ashraf.

The LDA DG passed on the directions for suspending these officials after listening to public complaints during his surprise visit to the ‘One Window Cell’ of LDA on Tuesday.

According to details, these complaints pertained to irrelevant objections on public applications, non-disposal of complaints even after expiry of deadlines and use of delaying tactics by the officials with regard to approval of building plans, commercialisation issues and other related matters.

Nabeel Javeed said that LDA was a public service organisation while those involved in causing troubles for the people instead of providing relief would be dealt with severely. Strict action would be taken against the officials involved in using delaying tactics and putting irrelevant objections on applications filed by the people, he added.

The DG informed that a complaint box has been placed at the One Window Cell of LDA and people can drop their written complaints about any directorate of LDA in this box. “Prompt action will be taken on these complaints,” he assured.

He directed the officers and officials to ensure timely disposal of applications submitted at the One Window Cell of LDA. He called for informing the applicants about objections, if any, on their application in one go instead of causing inconvenience to them by calling them again and again.