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Thursday March 28, 2024

People are talking about —

September 20, 2020

-- how the tragic motorway incident couldn’t unite our parliamentarians and politicians and during the National Assembly session many of them were busy in point scoring and passing insensitive remarks, with two high ranking politicians – one a senator – going off on a tangent and reminding that the motorway was built by the former PM and the other remarking that such incidents take place because men are jobless. People wonder what kind of thought process goes on in their minds to be so insensate.

-- the fact that old age pensioners have to stand in a queue for hours to receive their monthly profit from the National Savings Centres, something that is both time-consuming and exhausting. People say the authorities concerned should think about the hardships these elderly persons face and transfer the profit to the customer’s bank account so that they can withdraw the money through ATMs and cheques instead of getting harassed and putting a strain on their health.

-- the fact that some parents are of the view that masks are not a necessity when children go to school as it is not possible for them to wear a mask all the time during school hours. People say with many schools being shut down for not following SOP’s and both teachers and students being found infected with the virus, this negative thinking is not making matters any easier and if the objections continue, maybe school attendance hours should be shortened.

-- how SOP’s are being ignored not only by the general public but by the authorities who should be setting an example for others instead of being complacent and thereby adding to the danger of rising COVID-19 infections. People say where SOP’s can be enforced it should be mandatory for those in charge to see that they are. The recent launch of the sightseeing bus saw passengers, many of them children, without masks and seated with no social distancing.

-- the ill-fated BRT project of Peshawar which took ages to complete and was plagued by accidents and shut down, some say because of the faulty design and narrow track. People say the citizens were happy that it was operational but the buses couldn’t run properly for even a month and seven of them have mysteriously caught fire. Since fires cannot start themselves, there should be an investigation and causes determined whether they were technical issues or arson was involved.

-- the list of taxpayers that was put in the public domain recently and the shocking amount of meagre tax paid by most of our political pundits, with some of them skipping the process entirely. People say while it is a well-known fact that Pakistanis are not inclined to pay tax and it has to be taken from them indirectly by other means, at least those who are elected by the people should be more honest about their assets and income.

-- the rising number of encroachments in localities of every city which have become a major problem for the inhabitants, who say pushcart owners are responsible for traffic jams in the markets, as they set up business anywhere they want. People say not only push carts but wrongly parked cars and wares lying outside the shop limits all fall under the category ‘encroachment’ and the administration needs to crack down without fear of reprisal from the corrupt mafia which allows this to happen. – I.H.