Teachers to protest outside Punjab Assembly today

LAHORE

United Teachers Council (UTC) Punjab will hold a protest demonstration against the Schools Department outside Punjab Assembly on Tuesday (today).

According to a press release, the teachers started reaching the provincial metropolis from different parts of the province. UTC leaders said they raised voice against injustices against the schoolteachers but to no avail. They expressed concerns over handing over of public schools to Daanish Schools Authority in the name of centres of excellence.

The schoolteachers are also critical of the recently established District Education Authorities and non-upgrade of teachers.  ADB: A fact finding mission of Asian Development Bank visited Urban Unit for discussion on Project Participatory Technical Assessment Studies (PPTA) and Draft Loan Agreement under the project of Punjab Intermediate Cities Improvement Investment Programme PICIIP.

According to a press release, the ADB mission was headed by Kiyoshi Nakamitsu, Principal Urban Development Specialist. Plans on procurement, gender, communication, risk management, water and sanitation, social safeguard, financial analysis, project administration manual and infrastructure were discussed with an aim to reach some tangible points before putting the documents for further approval and execution. Rafay Alam, legal adviser and member BoD Urban Unit, attended the meeting. The house had consensus on meeting the deadlines from making drafts to executing the plans in close partnership and coordination.

The experts in Asian Development Bank team had group meetings with various sector specialists at the Urban Unit ensuring that the recommended plans about five intermediate cities namely Sialkot, Sahiwal, Sargodha, Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan are discussed in detail so as to benefit the communities living in these cities.

The ten member delegation includes Srinivasaan Janardanam, Jun Ho Kim, Jose Tibucio Nicolas, Joris Gvan Etten, Douglas Perkins, Charles Felix Simbilo and Shaukat Shafi. The delegation later called on Secretary Local Government & Community Development and Secretary Planning & Development Department discussing the funds flow mechanism and other relevant legalities of the project.

The ADB team will visit the cities while seeing the systems and meeting Town Municipal Administrations for revising the draft Aid Memoire, administration manual and preparation of related documents.

LDA: In a grand operation against land grabbers in Sabzazar scheme on Monday, LDA retrieved 20 plots of various sizes in different blocks of the scheme. 

According to Lahore Development Authority officials, the net worth of these plots is worth millions of rupees. They said the retrieved plots included seven plots, each measuring 10 marlas, in block A, one such plot in E block, seven plots of seven marlas and two of three and a half marla in block H-1, one plot of five marlas in block L and two plots, each measuring five marlas, in block M of Sabzazar.

Meanwhile, staff of Commercialization Directorate Town Planning Wing of Lahore Development Authority sealed six marriage halls in New Garden Town area for not following building bylaws. A marriage hall should leave four kanals and two kanals of land for parking, but these marriage halls did not fulfill the condition, the Lahore Development Authority officials said. The sealed marriage halls included Gracious Marriage Hall, Sapphire Marriage Hall, Mughal-e-Azam Marriage Hall, Grand Marquee, Zouj Marriage Hall and Noor Jehan Marriage Hall.