Campuses reopen, transport restored

LAHORE : After the lockdown of three days, the government schools finally reopened on Saturday.

But the notification of school opening came pretty late at night and the parents were not aware of the schools’ schedule. Due to that, attendance of students was less than 50 per cent in the schools. Majority of teachers also didn’t show up.

A parent dropping her child at a school gate said, “I knew about the reopening of schools quite late but I didn’t want my child to miss the classes anymore.”

The colleges and universities also wore deserted look as students were not sure about the classes.

The teachers said they would try their best to complete the syllabus so that students did not miss the term.

From Monday, all the government and private educational institutes will work in routine. The exams will be rescheduled soon.

Transport: With the end of protests and sit-ins on late Friday night, intra city and intercity transport services resumed on Saturday morning.

In the provincial metropolis, metro bus including its feeder buses and buses of Lahore Transport Company resumed operations while private transporters also resumed their services for other cities providing a big relief to people who earlier could not travel because of the protests and sit-ins.

Similarly, train services also resumed with passenger trains leaving from designated railway stations.

PFA: Punjab Food Authority (PFA) Director General Capt (R) Muhammad Usman has appreciated enforcement teams and concerned wing’s heads for successfully rooting out the menace of adulteration and punished violators over not compliance with the PFA’s instructions.

He said this while presiding over a meeting regarding PFA’s performance. Additional Director General (operations) Rafia Haider presented a report. In this regard, the authority has also released a performance report of PFA for October 2018.

According to the report, enforcement teams of PFA have conducted as many as 43,689 general inspection visits on food outlets across the province and shut down 747 centres due to various violations of food standards. PFA has also served 25,000 improvement notices on minor issues and thousands of food business operators penalised with heavy fine tickets.

Breakdown of the statistics region wise; PFA has raided 12,868 food points and closed down 232 shops in Central Lahore zone, 17,085 raids in North Rawalpindi zone and shut 217 outlets, 6,020 inspections in South Multan and sealed 94 food outlets over failure of maintaining food safety standards. Similarly, PFA has checked 4,264 food joints in South Muzaffargarh and sealed111 food businesses.

The DG said PFA had conducted 41,132 raids among which 742 were sealed and issued fine tickets to 2,415 food outlets during September 2018. PFA had registered 31 FIRs in September and 52 cases were registered in October in the respective area police station, he said adding that the action was taken against hotels, restaurants, production units, canteens, sweets and bakers and other food points. The purpose of sealing and imposing a fine is to bring reforms in food business.

He said citizens could register their complaints and suggestions on PFA’s websites, complaint cell, and its facebook page, while complaint will immediately be addressed.