City’s plan for Eid sanitation laid out

LAHORE: The Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) has kicked into high gear an Eid Sanitation Plan to spruce up the city for Eid holidays as of Wednesday.

As many as 10 assistant district officers (ADOs) have been assigned to supervise the plan in nine towns.  Data Gunj Bukhsh Town, due to its large size, has been divided into two sectors: A and B. ADO Mohsin Ali will monitor Sector A while Mian Idrees will be in charge of sector B.

ADO Mian Tajamil will supervise at Gulberg town, Mian Naseer at Samanabad, Javed Butt at Shalimar Town, Malik Khaliq at Iqbal Town, Akram Gil at Wagha Town, Mian Gondal at Aziz Bhatti town and finally, Mian Irshad will be heading the team at Nishtar Town.

LWMC managing director Waseem Ajmal told The Express Tribune that the special cleanliness operation would be executed on Chand Raat (the eve of Eid) to brighten up each area.

“Around 6,000 sanitary workers, in special squads, have been assigned for mosques, shopping centres, parks, fruit and vegetable markets, commercial centres and main roads.

Waste containers and enclosures will be emptied out three times a day once the Eid holiday starts,” he said.Ajmal said that the focal areas would be the most frequented markets including Anarkali, Panorama Centre, The Mall, Liberty Market, Urdu Bazaar, Azam Market, Moon Market, Kareem Block Market and Model Town Link Road.

He said that more than 400 garbage lifters and 32 mechanical sweepers would be in place from dusk till dawn in different localities. A complaint centre has also been set up.

A City District Government Lahore (CDGL) official said that a satellite tracking system had been devised for mechanical sweepers. “The 32 mechanical sweepers are working on 120 major roads covering around 1,800 km daily.  The latest Global Positioning System (GPS) will track each mechanical sweeper every minute, recording its status and providing empirical evidence of its performance,” he added.

He said that the city produces over 6,000 tons of solid waste daily. This is expected to increase to 9,000 tons during Eid.

He said that strategies like performance-based wages for Solid Waste Management (SWM) workers that had resulted in near 100 per cent garbage lifting, had also been incorporated in this plan.

SWM director Rafiq Jatoi said that the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system had been developed to monitor the performance of staff during Eid. This system would provide data regarding total waste lifted in tonnes, total trips, fuel efficiency and total containers lifted daily. Jatoi said that this data would serve as an empirical tool for measuring the waste lifting efficiency of the department.

Another senior CDGL official was not as enthusiastic about the Eid plan, doubting the much hyped expected results of this operation.  He said that SWM workers were only capable of removing 5,000 tonnes of waste during Eid which would leave 4,000 tonnes spilling onto roads and streets.

“Road sweeping service is done improperly, and is mainly limited to commercial and ‘posh’ areas.  The number of collection bins, such as masonry enclosures, containers and trolleys, are too low for the waste produced.  Collection points are not located according to population and area requirements,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2010.