Celebration mode: City gears up for Eid Miladun Nabi

LWMC will clean 100 procession routes with 1,000 workers on duty in three shifts.

LAHORE:

Several city landmarks have been illuminated to celebrate Eid Miladun Nabi today (Tuesday).

Prominent buildings along The Mall, including the Town Hall, Wapda House, Alhamra, Lahore High Court have been decorated. Many streets in Gulberg, Islampura, Mughalpura and the Walled City have also been illuminated.

The district administration has assigned officers to monitor four main processions in the city along with 1,400 volunteers.

Four cameras each have been installed on eight vehicles to monitor the processions. Two of these vehicles will monitor the procession near the City railway station, the Walled city and Islampura.

Pillion riding has not been banned as speculated earlier.

Several roads have been closed for routine traffic.

Staff Officer to DCO Tariq Zaman said security arrangements had been finalised for the occasion. He said decorative lights had also been placed on the Town Hall and the DCO’s office.

Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) has said it has also finalised the cleanliness plan for Eid Miladun Nabi.  It says LWMC workers would manually sweep streets and machinery would be deployed at main roads to clean them up. The statement said that waste containers would be emptied in a timely manner. It said instructions had been issued to Albayrak and OzPak in this regard.

The cleanliness plan also includes washing of major mosques and sprinkling of water and lining of pavements.

The LWMC will focus on the Walled City, Shahdara, Thokar Niaz Baig, Jallo Mor, Islampura, LDA Avenue, the City railway station, Nishtar Town and Chungi Amar Sidhu.

Operations General Manager Khalid Majeed and Managers Asif Iqbal and Sohail Malik would supervise the operations. The statement said that LWMC was aiming to clean 100 procession routes. The company said some 1,000 workers would remain on duty in three shifts. LWMC spokesperson Memoona Arslan Bhatti said the drive would go on for the entire month. “We want to ensure that citizens can observe the holy month in a waste-free environment,” she added.

Hospitals put on high alert

The Health Department issued alerts on Monday to all public hospitals in the province in case of emergencies on Eid Miladun Nabi.

A spokesperson for the Health Department said that hospitals had been directed to ensure availability of extra beds in the emergency departments, and the adequate supply of life-saving drugs. The Health Department had issued instructions to all district headquarters, teaching hospitals and executive district officers to ensure availability of medicines and equipment to deal with any medical and surgical emergency. Senior administrators had been instructed to be present. They had been asked to place rosters of doctors in the emergency department on notice boards.

Hospitals had also been directed to draft an emergency crisis management plan and to have stand-by generators for uninterrupted supply of electricity, said a spokesperson of the Health Department.

Rescue 1122 finalises arrangements

Rescue 1122 Director General Rizwan Naseer said on Monday the Punjab Emergency Service had finalised arrangements for Eid Miladun Nabi. He said over 8,000 rescuers would be on duty across the province.

He said district emergency officers (DEOs) had prepared a comprehensive emergency medical cover for processions and rallies.

He said the leaves of the rescue officials had been cancelled. He a provincial monitoring cell and trained doctors would supervise the arrangements. He said the monitoring cell shall also remain operational round-the-clock.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2014.