Sacrificial animals to be transported for free

Customers who will be observing Eidul Azha rejoiced as the Punjab government announced the launch of a free-of-cost shuttle service for the transportation of sacrificial animals from cattle markets to home, starting Thursday (today).

The loading vehicles will provide the complimentary transportation service from July 7 to July 9 between 7am and 9pm.

The bills for the said vehicles will be footed by local municipal corporations, municipal committees and district councils, who would have to dig into their respective operating budgets as the Punjab government will not be providing any funds for the operation.

A circular for the implementation of this decision has already been distributed amongst the officials of the department of local government at the district level as well the administrators of the municipal corporations, municipal committees and district councils.

The service will be launched under the joint auspices of the Department of Local Government and the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), wherein the latter will be responsible for providing the hired loading vehicles to relevant authorities.

In order to avail the free-of-cost transportation service, the citizens will be required to make their bookings in advance, upon which they will receive their sacrificial animals according to their turn.

The authorities concerned emphasised that the citizens who reserve their slots well in time need not pay anything to the transporters, as their bills would be covered by the local government bodies.

While the service will be formally launched from Thursday (today), the facilitation has already begun in major cities since Wednesday (yesterday).

Deputy Commissioner Rawalpindi Division Tahir Farooq has instructed the chief officers of municipal corporations, district councils and RTA to complete the arrangements to ensure seamless and timely execution of the service.

The citizens have welcomed this development ahead of Eid and termed it a beneficial step.

However, the vendors at the Bhatta Chowk cattle market have express their dissatisfaction over the fact that only two loading vehicles at the location have been arranged for free-of-cost transportation.

This, they said, is an impractical measure as the customers will have to sit and wait at the mandi for anywhere from three to five hours for their animals to be transported. The vendors have suggested that the authorities concerned make use of all loading vehicles present at the cattle market by paying them on the spot. Otherwise, the well-meaning facility would only serve a demonstrative purpose rather than a practical one, they said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2022.