Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) is bracing for launch of new sanitation pilot project designed for door-to-door waste collection and daily cleaning of major roads and streets in designated areas of two towns of provincial capital.
The project, expected to be inaugurated by the mayor of Istanbul on March 5, would be implemented in 16 union councils of Data Gunj Bakhsh and Gulberg Towns. LWMC plans to replicate the project in the other parts of the city in coming six months. With all new imported machinery, LWMC has dubbed it a “one of its kind” sanitation plan that was being implemented in the country for the first time.
For this purpose, LWMC has imported 600 new machines including mechanical waste collectors, waste dumpers and mechanical waste sweepers. The services under this project include provision of free waste collection bags to all residential and commercial consumers of designated union councils, door-to-door daily collection of waste bags, putting 5000 new waste containers, mechanical cleaning and washing of roads, streets, underpasses, squares and green belts. For first four months of the project, LWMC would provide these services for free. Later, these services would be charged at a cost determined after surveying the affordability of consumers and expenditure. The company has outsourced the project to two Turk companies Ozkar Tallar and Al-Bayrak.
Earlier in December last year, LWMC had started this project in six model areas of city including Township, Gulshan Ravi, Mohni Road, Tajpura and Qila Lakshaman Singh. A similar project was also started in Barkat Market Garden Town in January. However instead of new machines, customised rickshaws were employed for waste collection in both of these earlier projects. Before the launch of the new project, the LWMC has started a publicity and awareness blitz in the designated towns. According to LWMC Communication Manager Memona Arsalan, the highlight of the awareness campaign was to familiarize the public with the new Solid Waste Management Project.
The initial awareness activities include graffiti on 32 different walls of the 16 Union Councils (Gulberg Town and Data Gunj Bakhsh Town that are planned to be drawn in the first month of the launch.
The campaign initially started off with distribution of leaflets in different chowks, main roads and mosques of the 16 Union Councils and Regal Chowk, Lakshmi Chowk, Station Road, Jain Mandir Chowk, Governor House, Beadon Road, Mall Road, Shadman, China Chowk, Bhatti Chowk, Shimla Pahari Chowk, Bilal Gunj Chowk and prominent mosques. LWMC’s social mobilisers and Zonal officers of the concerned areas actively participated in the activity.
The awareness campaign through graffiti started off from Government College of Technology for Women and Vocational Institute, Lytton Road where Begum Shaista Pervaiz Malik (President Socio Economic Rehabilitation and Vocational Education) graced the occasion with her presence as the chief guest and appreciated the efforts of the young artists who had participated in the activity. Artists from Punjab University (Dept of Art and Design) painted a wall with the theme of a butterfly symbolising Pak-Turk friendship and the cleanliness drive being introduced in the city by LWMC. Leaflets were also distributed on the occasion.
Great news for designated area's Lahoris. To know that this service will be introduced as free of charge for first four months raises some concern.What is wrong with our beloved country's taxation system? This will only disadantage the poor. Consequently, the new cleaner Lahore initiative will defeat its purpose. While the news is hot some areas might benefit from it and the others may still linger in the hope of next election when some promises might get delivered. The real challange will be forever shortage of fuel therefore no collection! I would like to request LWMC to provide a good structured plan to public to take this ambiguity out of payment system so there is no room for bribe, unrealistic and made up charges to the consumer to give them nasty suprises. I personally would have appreciated attached to this report the actual Artistic work from Punjab University that was mentioned in this report by the writer. However, I do appreciate the beautiful clear blue sky shown in the photo even though we may never ever see such pretty picture of nature over Lahore horizon again.
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