Pre-monsoon rains expose LWMC ‘efficiency’

LAHORE: As the pre-monsoon rains have started to hit the provincial metropolis, the ‘efficiency’ of Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) has exposed in the shape of un-lifted heaps of garbage present alongside major roads as well as residential and commercial localities here Tuesday.

The situation was so worse on Tuesday morning that Deputy Commissioner Lahore Saleha Saeed, who is also the LWMC chairperson, had to move her administrative officers team to check the LWMC field staff and state of cleanliness in their respective jurisdiction.

It is pertinent to mention here that the district administration team found that LWMC officers and workers were absent from their duties at several points. The cleanliness situation of vegetable and fruit markets, Lorry Adda and many other important places were pathetic and ironically no LWMC officers and workers reached these sore points to perform their duty.

As per district administration officials, Assistant Commissioner Cantt visited UC-146 and 155 and found that 20 LWMC workers were absent from their duties. Assistant Commissioner City visited Thokar Niaz Beig and found that 17 workers were absent from their duties and cleanliness activities were not even initiated at 7am. The LWMC area manager was also absent from the duty.

Additional Deputy Commissioner (Headquarters) visited Badami Bagh, Lorry Adda and Kotha Pind and shared pictures of un-lifted garbage with the LWMC’s senior team after which cleanliness activities were initiated.

Similarly, un-lifted garbage was found in the areas of Samsani Khoi (Johar Town), Batapur, Kot Kamboh, Link Road, Crown Park, Vegetable Market and Canal View Housing Society. The district administration teams took pictures of scattered waste and intimated DCO Lahore about the worst cleanliness situation in these localities.

Saleha Saeed said that following the strict monitoring of district administration, LWMC teams started cleaning the city. She directed her team to continue inspection of various localities and collect pictorial evidence regarding un-lifted and scattered waste and garbage.

The situation raised serious questions over the performance of LWMC new Managing Director who after taking charge of the seat had claimed to clean the city at any cost. The scribe repeatedly tried to contact LWMC MD Khalid Nazir on his official cell number (0311-2950000) but he didn’t attend the calls nor replied to the SMS regarding the news.

However, LWMC’s spokesman Jamil Khawar said that waste generation was a continuous process and presence of waste on any road didn’t mean that LWMC was not working properly. He dispelled the impression that pointing out of waste by district administration was a failure on part of LWMC’s higher management. He claimed that over 80 percent of the pictorial evidence shared by district administration with LWMC was from Railways and Cantonment areas, which are not the LWMC responsibility. He said DC Lahore is also the LWMC chairperson and she is monitoring the situation for the betterment of the city. He said LWMC, its officers, workers and contractors were performing their duties as per SOPs and no slackness has been taken in this regard.

Meanwhile, scattered rain hit the city here Tuesday while Met office predicted similar weather conditions for the next 24 hours. Met officials said that seasonal low lies over northeast Balochistan. Pre-monsoon currents are penetrating in central parts of the country. They predicted that hot and dry weather is expected in most parts of the country while very hot in plain areas of Punjab and Sindh. However, dust-thunderstorm/rain is expected at isolated places in Kalat, Sargodha Divisions and Kashmir. Tuesday's maximum temperature was recorded at Sibbi where mercury reached 45°C while in Lahore, it was 36.4°C and minimum was 20.4°C.