Provision of clean drinking water to citizens priority of govt: Sarwar

FAISALABAD: Punjab Governor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar has said that the Sarwar Foundation is providing clean drinking water to two million people daily while water filtration plants are being set up in jails, hospitals, educational institutions and Police Lines.

He said this while talking to media after inaugurating a water filtration plant at Chief Traffic Officer Office here on Sunday. Provincial Minister for Colonies and Culture Mian Khayal Ahmed Kastro, Parliamentarians Mian Farrukh Habib, Raja Riaz Ahmed, Firdous Rai, RPO Raja Rifat Mukhtar, SSP Operations Kashif Aslam, Chief Traffic Officer Shahzada Umar Abbas Babar, Assistant Commissioner Sadar Umar Maqbool, Political Advisor to Punjab Governor Zafar Sindhu, Overseas Committee Chairman Mirza Muhammad Asghar, police officers and leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf were also present.

The Punjab governor said that the first water project under Punjab Aab Pak Authority was being implemented in Chak Jhumra a few days ago which would provide clean drinking water to 16 villages. He said that an agreement had been signed with the Sailani Welfare Trust to run the closed plants. He said that billions of rupees had been spent on water projects in the past but due to lack of maintenance of the plants, they were closed. He said that the Sarwar Foundation would run them in phase programme.

Ch Sarwar said that provision of clean drinking water to the citizens was one of the top priorities of the government and in this regard, the Sarwar Foundation was providing valuable services.

Earlier, the Punjab governor inaugurated a water filtration plant and said that the plant should be maintained so that its fruits could be reaped for a long time.

MEETING: Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Ali has directed the Health Department to achieve the targets of the immunisation campaign and submitted monthly report in this regard.

He said this while presiding over a performance review meeting of the Expanded Program for Immunisation Campaign here on Sunday. District Health Officer Dr Bilal Ahmed briefed about the details of implementation of the programme. The DC clarified that the campaign of immunisation of children upto 15 months of age in the district against various infectious diseases should be carried out responsibly and steps should be taken to create awareness among the parents. He reviewed the overall performance of the Health Department in completing the immunisation course for children and said that although the Health Department had heavy responsibilities due to the corona and dengue virus situation, but it was also a huge responsibility to protect children from other diseases, including polio.

The DC said that the scope of awareness programmes should be further expanded to make the parents aware about the usefulness and importance of immunisation to their children so that all the parents had a sense of vaccination against various diseases upto 15 months of age.

He said that completion of immunisation course was also a national duty so all available resources should be utilised to achieve 100pc targets in the outreach programme.

The DHO informed during the meeting that the children from birth to 15 months should be vaccinated. Immunisation could prevent deadly diseases such as tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, pneumonia, whooping cough, jaundice, meningitis, diarrhea, tetanus and measles, he added.

He said that durable monitoring was carried out for performance of vaccinators during the programme.

SMART CARDS: The Excise and Taxation Department has distributed 145,000 smart cards to car/motorcycle owners so far during the current financial year.

Excise Director Ahmed Saeed said that DG Saleha Saeed took emergency measures for the delivery of pending smart cards and completed the printing of the cards which were being delivered to the owners at a fast pace and the remaining smart cards would also be delivered by the end of this month.

He said that in case of non-receipt of smartcard, owners of cars/bikes could contact the special counter set up in all the district offices of the division immediately and get the details of the pending card so that the complaint related to the card could be resolved.