Lahore Metropolitan Corporation (LMC) Mayor Col (r) Mubashir Javaid Malik has said that work to make Lahore free of encroachments and a model of cleanliness is in progress.
“Restoring the beauty and grandeur of Lahore, improving schooling standards, providing sports facilities, improving traffic, and promoting discourse are the corporation’s priorities,” he said during an interview with the APP here on Sunday.
To a query, the mayor said that encroachments had disfigured the city’s historic look and added to traffic hazards besides causing losses to the city’s revenue.
He said there had been minimal resistance from the city’s residents in the drive against encroachments as people understand the importance of the initiative.
Regarding his responsibilities as mayor, he said that the whole city was under his jurisdiction and that he had been coordinating with authorities like WASA, Punjab Health Authority, Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC), Punjab Safe Cities Authority, and others, for a better working relationship.
Malik said that the ‘Clean Lahore’ project had been launched to make the city waste-free and environmentally safe. “I, along with respective union council (UC) chairmen, visit two to three union councils daily to ensure cleanliness,” he said, adding that the UCs would be re-visited after 2 months to assess whether cleanliness targets had been achieved and standard operating procedures (SoPs) implemented.
To another query, the mayor said that disease could be controlled through better cleanliness measures in every nook and corner of the city. “All UC chairmen have been asked to work in their UCs for the supply of clean water and improvement of sanitation,” Malik said.
Regarding funds for the union councils, he said that UC representatives would be provided funds within a few weeks, adding that 5-7 departments out of the 36 would be under the direct control of the municipal corporation.
Malik said that a master plan had been prepared to provide Lahore with clean drinking water as polluted drinking water causes multiple diseases. Under the new project, rusty water pipelines would be replaced with plastic pipes and water-supply connections would be directly connected to households to reduce rusting and other hazards.
Regarding the supply of clean water, the mayor said that filtration plants provide a temporary solution and that the government was planning to install a water purification plant on the Bambawali-Ravi-Bedian Canal (commonly known as the BRB) to ensure a pure water supply to the people of the provincial capital.
Regarding the encroachment drive, the mayor said that in the future, road-side vendors would be registered against a fee and allowed to operate inside mohallas, but wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the same spot day after day. “This will generate revenue for the MCL, as well as provide a livelihood to the road-side vendors affected by the encroachment drive,” he said.
