Foreign firms interested in LWMC project, says chairman

LAHORE:Several foreign companies have shown interest in the ‘Waste-to-Energy’ project of Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC). This was revealed by company’s chairman Atif Chaudhry during a press conference here on Monday.

Atif Chaudhry said a delegation of Norwegian company would be visiting Pakistan to give its presentation regarding the project while a company from Thailand has already given its presentation.

He said the main reason of delay in launching of this project was the determination of tariff, which was the job of NEPRA and LWMC has no TORs in this regard. “That is why we wanted to convert the biggest government owned company with 18,000 employees and an annual budget of around Rs13 billion into an Authority,” he stated.

He said several decisions were taken in the recently held 130th board meeting of the company and top of all was the restructuring of LWMC into an authority. LWMC Chairman said a pilot project of door-to-door waste collection was started in 34 union councils of the provincial metropolis and after successful results, this system will be implemented across the city.

He said after becoming an Authority, LWMC can collect service charges from the citizens, which will be in three different slabs as per the classification of area as category A, B and C, revealed the Chairman and adding that a draft was being prepared in this regard.

Atif further said that a ban on any kind of transfer of town managers, zonal officers, supervisors, and other operational staff has been imposed until further orders to improve the efficiency of operational staff.

Further, it has also been decided to change the prices of eco-friendly compost "Belia" produced at the LWMC’s compost plant, he said and maintained that earlier a bag of 5 kg compost was being sold at Rs45 and now its new price was Rs80, which was still much less than the similar products available in the open market.

He said as a worker-friendly organisation, the company has increased the amount for the burial of LWMC workers from Rs25,000 to Rs50,000, he said and further maintained that as an Authority more benefits to workers will be introduced.

Chairman LWMC further said that a new mobile application was being developed with the help of PITB through which the citizens can report their complaints and also get feedback.

Meanwhile, on the instructions of LWMC CEO Rafia Haider, Enforcement Wing was strictly inspecting the illegal dumping of waste on the roads across the city. Rafia stated that enforcement teams were active in the field round-the-clock. In the last month, enforcement teams have completed inspections of more than 11,000 places and issued 1,473 challans for littering and illegal dumping on the roads while a fine of Rs3546,000 was imposed for violation of Local Government Act besides issuance of 4,000 warning notices for minor violations.

During the last month, 12 illegal dumping vehicles were seized on the spot while six FIRs were registered. Rafia requested the citizens to refrain from violating the Local Government Act to avoid any kind of action.