Lahore comes out tops with 1,356 complaints

Lahore tops the district wise break up of complaints filed with the Punjab Ombudsman with 1,356 complaints during 2009

LAHORE: Lahore topped the district wise break up of complaints filed with the Punjab Ombudsman with 1,356 complaints during 2009, said the annual report of the office of the ombudsman for 2009, presented in the Punjab Assembly session on Wednesday.

Total 13, 157 complaints were filed with the ombudsman office in 2009 from all over the country.

The report said that due to a larger number of fresh complaints, the disposal during the year 2009 was unusually higher at 17,149 compared to 5,155 in the preceding year.

The second largest number of complaints in Punjab were filed in Faisalabad (723), followed by Sargodha (669); Rahim Yar Khan (649); Bahawalnagar (623) and Multan (607).

The least complaints were filed in Jhelum (99). As many as 45 complaints were filed from other provinces and five were filed from abroad.

A department wise break up revealed that most complaints were about the Education Department (2,383)

It was followed by the Police Department (1,755), the Revenue Administration (1,307), the Local Government and Community Development (926), the Health Department (752), the Irrigation and Power (507).

Complaints were also filed against the Law and Parliamentary Affairs (4), Punjab Text Book Board (4), Sports Department (3), The Lahore Museum (2), the Punjab Small Industries Cooperation (2) and Tourism and Resort Development Department (2).

The report said that office of the ombudsman remained vacant for more than six months during 2008, resulting in an unusual backlog of 6,628 complaints in 2009.

The fresh complains instituted during the year were 13,157 with 19,785 still pending.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 7^th, 2010.