CM Buzdar dissatisfied with waste management authorities

Report points out deficiencies in urban planning, institutional capacity

LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar is unhappy over poor performance of waste management authorities in big cities of the province, including Lahore, The Express Tribune learnt on Saturday.

An official communiqué indicates that the chief minister recently sought a report on the state of cleanliness in Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi and Multan. The special report highlights that all major cities are facing challenges in disposing of the waste.

It points out that a number of people die each year owing to diseases caused by lack of proper waste disposal. It estimates that roughly 20 million tonnes of solid waste is generated in the country in a year, with an annual growth rate of 2.4%.

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The report identifies the root causes of the worsening garbage problem as lack of urban planning, institutional capacity and public awareness, obsolete infrastructure and corruption in waste management institutions.

It states that the field staff of a law-enforcement agency had conducted a survey in all the five cites for three days in January to check cleanliness and waste management. In most cases, the cleanliness conditions were unsatisfactory and heaps of garbage and waste were found lying unattended in almost all urban and suburban areas of the cities, polluting environment and spreading diseases.

It pointed out that although solid waste management policies did exist for all big cites, they were not enforced properly. The public sector workers serving in municipal institutions are neither trained properly nor have knowledge of waste management techniques and practices.

The report highlights that though the government has introduced a proper waste collection system, garbage is dumped on streets and at open places due to lack of awareness among people and negligence of the waste management departments.

It also indicates that citizens are not fully aware of the relationship between reckless waste disposal and resulting environmental and public health hazards.

The report points out that there is no system of segregation or collection of different types of solid waste separately. Controlled sanitary landfill sites are rare and open burning of garbage is common.

Reacting over the report, the Punjab Local Governmentand Community Development Department has directed the managing directors of all waste management companies and chief officers of metropolitan corporations, municipal committees, Tehsil councils and town committees to launch special sanitation campaigns with special focus on elimination of stray dogs and quick disposal of the carcass in a safe way.

The government spends billions of rupees annually on cleanliness and waste collection from urban areas. To improve sanitary conditions inmajor cities, the government has also set up the Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Rawalpindi, Multan and Bahawalpur waste management companies, but the situation is not satisfactory yet, apparently because of non-professional management and unskilled workforce.

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Buzdar on various occasions has expressed dissatisfaction over the performances of the LWMC and other waste management companies. In a recent meeting, he ordered the companies to improvetheir performance in Lahore and other cities, as well as to launch special cleanliness campaigns.

The chief minister stressed that special attention should be paid to cleanliness of cities and lamented presence of waste despite the funds provided for its disposal. He said work should be done in an organized manner to improve the cleanliness arrangements. The presence of heaps of garbage on the roads of the provincial capital was a question mark over the performance of the LWMC, he said.