basicamenity
One big dumping ground
Thirty housing societies along the canal are without proper sewers, 
apparently for lack of funds
By Abida Ayub
The inability of City District Government Lahore (CDGL) and Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) to channel wastewater of over 30 housing societies as well as the industrial units besides the Lahore Canal is taking the city towards a disaster. 
There are 14 housing societies and dozens of small and big industrial units including a water park from BRB Canal to Harbanspura, and 15 housing societies from Thokar Niaz Baig to Mohlanwal, where no proper sewerage system has been installed by the CDGL and Wasa for the past many years and these societies are directly discharging their wastewater into Lahore Canal and subsoil of the area.

MOODSTREE
Silence at The Mall
By Ather Naqvi
I’m sure it is worth pointing out. An odd twenty minutes’ walk on one stretch of The Mall that day, the day of the protests, has left lasting impressions on my mind — both good and bad. Good because it was so serene, and calm, and pollution-free at this otherwise busy hour of the day. There was no traffic on either side of The Mall, except for an occasional government vehicle zipping past in the line of duty. The guards on duty at the main gates of the buildings were taking a stroll or listening to the radio on this national holiday.
The security personnel deployed at the checkposts looked strained, as if  in anticipation of a charged mob. 

TOWN TALK
*Exhibition at The Drawing Art Gallery titled New Arrangements showcases the work of five artists who explore different forms of image making in painting and photography. Exhibition on from Oct 3-10. 
*Lahore Music Forum’s (LMF) monthly concert on Wednesday, Oct 3 at Alhamra, Hall 3, The Mall at 6:30pm. Artists: Chand Khan, Suraj Khan (vocal) and special guest Ustad Ashraf Sharif Khan (sitar).

All about fire check
Rescue 1122 proposes fire and community safety legislation, besides establishing an impartial building control authority, to prevent fire incidents
By Waqar Gillani
Many of the congested plazas at Hall Road – one of the busiest electronics markets of Lahore – are still without proper fire safety measures while government seems quiet on the issue. 
The last fire incident in one plaza was reported a few days ago, during the widespread media campaign of the city administration giving a week’s time to the building owners to equip their shops and markets and factories with the necessary fire safety measures to avert any untoward incident. The campaign started after fire erupted from electricity generator in a small private factory on Bund Road killing 21 workers who were besieged in a two-storey closed building without any emergency exit and fire extinguishing equipment.

Destination Waziristan
Two American anti-drone activists in Lahore share their plans 
By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed
Regardless of whether Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan succeeds in marching into Waziristan on October 7 or not, the momentum is building and prospective participants from abroad are finally flying into the country. Once here, they will use the time at their proposal to meet rights activists, campaigners, research organisations, lawyers representing drone victims, political figures and others to muster public support for the march. 
While the organisers are busy convincing the authorities to issue visas promptly to human rights activists, media personnel etc, the lucky ones who have them by now are here or aboard Pakistan-bound flights.

A case of unidentified bodies
How a man finds about his lost father
By Arshad Shafiq
“There may be so many people like me who might not have received dead bodies of their lost loved ones, held their funerals or buried them. The reason for such cases is that the authorities concerned don’t use modern and sophisticated methods that are used in developed countries to identify a dead body. I pray no one undergoes such torment I went through in search of my lost father. I went to mortuaries, hospitals, Edhi centres, 1122 Rescue centres and everywhere people told me I should go to, to find my 70-year-old father, an Alzheimer’s patient who left his house on June 13, 2012 and did not return,” says Chaudhry Kamran son of Chaudhry Sher Muhammad. 

caption
Rice field needs lots of water that brings the worms on the surface.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

basicamenity
One big dumping ground
Thirty housing societies along the canal are without proper sewers, 
apparently for lack of funds
By Abida Ayub

The inability of City District Government Lahore (CDGL) and Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) to channel wastewater of over 30 housing societies as well as the industrial units besides the Lahore Canal is taking the city towards a disaster.

There are 14 housing societies and dozens of small and big industrial units including a water park from BRB Canal to Harbanspura, and 15 housing societies from Thokar Niaz Baig to Mohlanwal, where no proper sewerage system has been installed by the CDGL and Wasa for the past many years and these societies are directly discharging their wastewater into Lahore Canal and subsoil of the area.

The pollution level of Lahore canal water is increasing day by day and the concerned authorities responsible for tackling this issue are not paying any heed to it.

The Deputy Director EPA, Naseem Shah said that it was the liability of the CDGL and Wasa for arranging environmentally sound treatment techniques and disposal of wastewater in the area. He said that the district officials of the Environment Protection Department (EPD) had conducted survey of these housing societies, industrial units and other entities discharging untreated wastewater into Lahore Canal and subsoil in the area.

Wasa laid no main sewer here, the reason why all these societies and industries are discharging their wastewater directly into Lahore Canal and the subsoil of the area causing water and soil pollution issues.

Deputy Director Naseem says that majority of the housing societies had pits in their respective societies resulting in the underground water pollution in the area. The department had issued several EPOs (environment protection orders) to Wasa officials to install the main trunk sewer line in these localities but to no avail. A case has also been filed in Environment Tribunal by the EPD against Town Municipal Authorities of CDGL and Wasa in this regard, he adds.

Environmentalist Rafay Alam says that wastewater which is being injected directly into the subsoil has adverse effects because it might take over hundred years to purify the underground water of this area. He says that contamination of drinking water causes waterborne diseases like cholera, gastroenteritis, typhoid fever along with many other parasitic, bacterial and viral infections. He urged the need to install a trunk sewer line in the said locality on immediate basis because the after-effects of the pollution of underground water would be irreparable.

The societies including EME Housing Society, Eden Housing Society, Punjab Cooperative Housing Society, Rizwan Garden, Lahore Medical Housing Society II, Hajvery Society, Nazeer Garden, Khuban Housing Society, Mehtab Park, Gulistan Colony, Rehmanpura, Asim Town, Tuls Pura, Nawabpura, Gujjar Colony, Nawan Pind, Pearl Garden and others are discharging their wastewater directly into Lahore canal and subsoil of the area.

Besides, Metro Shopping Mall at Thokar, Sozo Water Park and dozens of small industrial units in these areas are also polluting the canal water by discharging their untreated wastewater into the canal.

A senior officer of CDGL, on condition of anonymity, tells The News on Sunday that the basic reason of delay in installation of sewer line is the conflict between the TMAs and Wasa officials which has been continuing for the past many years.

“TMA officials submitted in a written statement to EPD that it is not the responsibility of TMA to install the sewerage lines rather Wasa is the sole authority responsible for it,” he says. While Wasa officials are of the view that the said locality from BRB Canal to Harbanspura is not in their jurisdiction the concerned TMAs are responsible for laying down the sewer line.

Wasa MD Abdul Rasheed says that the department is already working on Thokar Niaz Baig trunk sewer line project but unavailability of funds is the basic reason for the delay in this project. The Wasa MD says that he had asked the Punjab government for the required funds for this project and soon this project would be initiated.

Commissioner Lahore Division Jawad Rafique says it is the responsibility of CDGL and Wasa to install proper sewage system beside the Lahore Canal but the TMAs concerned have failed to do so. “The basic reason for the delay is conflict between Wasa and TMA. The TMAs have been directed to coordinate with Wasa to resolve this issue,” says the commissioner. On the other hand, Wasa officials have been directed to provide all their expertise and mechanisms to TMAs to lay down the main trunk sewer line in these areas,” he adds. Jawad Rafique at the same time says that presently CDGL does not have enough resources for both projects and the Punjab government has been asked for the funds.

‑abida.ayub@gmail.com

caption

Harbanspura drain.

 

 

   

  MOODSTREE
Silence at The Mall
By Ather Naqvi

I’m sure it is worth pointing out. An odd twenty minutes’ walk on one stretch of The Mall that day, the day of the protests, has left lasting impressions on my mind — both good and bad. Good because it was so serene, and calm, and pollution-free at this otherwise busy hour of the day. There was no traffic on either side of The Mall, except for an occasional government vehicle zipping past in the line of duty. The guards on duty at the main gates of the buildings were taking a stroll or listening to the radio on this national holiday.

The security personnel deployed at the checkposts looked strained, as if  in anticipation of a charged mob.

Unmindful of the coming hours, the little birds on the big old trees seemed to chirp their usual stuff more cheerfully, perhaps taking these moments as an extended part of the morning. Pleasantly, the honking was few and far between and one could hear and feel the fresh breeze of the early day.

This was enchanting! I felt privileged being a journalist for being able to roam about in the city unhindered.

It could be the calm before the storm as they say, I thought. The protesters having pulled up their socks could be here any minute, blasting these silent and out-of-this-world moments in a split second.

Nevertheless, those precious moments gave me ample time to reflect on what it was all about — the jammed traffic, the chaos, the increasing levels of pollution, the impatience and intolerance of the mob, the callousness of the city planners, etc. etc. On any given day, we know it takes nerve-wrecking driving skills to commute from one point of the city to the other. Why?

The questions that came to my mind in those solitary moments were simple. Why have we not been able to lay down rules and regulations for holding organised and peaceful protests? Why the whole city has to be taken hostage to bring home one’s point, resulting in violence and traffic mess? On other normal days also, why does one have to get stuck in traffic on a daily basis, bump into other cars, and take abnormally long to take a turn at a round about, only because there’s a protest going on nearby?

City planners too come in for criticism here. Are we only capable of planning mammoth projects such as the Bus Rapid Transit Service (BRTS)? Are we aware of the problems of an ordinary commuter? Holding a protest is the right of an individual or a group of individuals and to organise it in such a way that minimises the risk of violence and traffic congestion is the responsibility of government authorities.

But there is another issue here regarding traffic jams on the main arteries of the city. Even if the government does show its ‘efficiency’ and sees widening of roads as the only solution to traffic jams, it becomes a punching bag.

Those who claim to have some knowledge of modern city management say streamlining traffic is more important than widening the roads and that these are two different things. While the two sides stick to their respective arguments, I was not ready to spare any more time on the issue.

The chirping of the birds artfully breaking the unusual silence at The Mall regained my attention and I preferred bird-watching over losing myself into the unending debate. But right behind the next bunch of lush green trees was the next police checkpost. The police personnel were visibly tense.

 

 

 

  TOWN TALK

*Exhibition at The Drawing Art Gallery titled New Arrangements showcases the work of five artists who explore different forms of image making in painting and photography. Exhibition on from Oct 3-10.

*Lahore Music Forum’s (LMF) monthly concert on Wednesday, Oct 3 at Alhamra, Hall 3, The Mall at 6:30pm. Artists: Chand Khan, Suraj Khan (vocal) and special guest Ustad Ashraf Sharif Khan (sitar).

*Exhibition at Drawing Studio titled Dimension One by three young visual artists by and large working in lines, a basic element of a fine art form.

*Reading of Masnavi Maulana Jalal-ud-Din Rumi by Ustad Ahmed Javed at Model Town Library on Friday, Oct 5 from 5:15pm-6:30pm.

*Monthly meeting and auction of stamps takes place 1st Sunday of every month at Alhamra, The Mall. All the collectors of stamps, coins and bank notes are invited. People can exchange, buy or sell stamps and mingle with the top collectors of Pakistan. Next Sunday from 11:30 am to 3:00 pm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All about fire check
Rescue 1122 proposes fire and community safety legislation, besides establishing an impartial building control authority, to prevent fire incidents
By Waqar Gillani

Many of the congested plazas at Hall Road – one of the busiest electronics markets of Lahore – are still without proper fire safety measures while government seems quiet on the issue.

The last fire incident in one plaza was reported a few days ago, during the widespread media campaign of the city administration giving a week’s time to the building owners to equip their shops and markets and factories with the necessary fire safety measures to avert any untoward incident. The campaign started after fire erupted from electricity generator in a small private factory on Bund Road killing 21 workers who were besieged in a two-storey closed building without any emergency exit and fire extinguishing equipment.

Around a dozen fire incidents have taken place in the city since the Bund Road tragedy.

Traders have raised demand for concerted efforts on the part of the government to adopt adequate measures to avert such incidents. Most of the commercial and residential buildings – such as shopping malls, hotels, trade centres, housing societies and government installations – lack proper fire control system.

Muhammad Siddique, a trader demands from the government to take proper steps to implement its policy. “Each one of us is responsible for such incidents because we are not learning from the past,” he adds. He alleges that people do illegal constructions and the local authorities keep their eyes closed or take bribes to keep quiet. He demands that all city markets, factories and industries should be re-visited properly by relevant authorities and all security and safety measures should be ensured.

In Lahore, the Punjab Emergency Service Rescue 1122 has asked the federal and provincial governments to approve its proposal of introducing fire and community safety legislation, besides establishing an impartial building control authority, to prevent fire incidents, an official said requesting anonymity.

A consolidated report of fire emergencies reported in the past five years, prepared by Punjab Emergency Service Rescue 1122 says there have been at least 11,049 cases of fire incidents, mostly because of short circuiting, only in the jurisdiction of Lahore till last month (August).

Out of these incidents, 5876 are because of short circuit, 280 because of gas leakage, 46 because of LPG cylinder; 231 because of carelessness; 3,642 incidents occurred due to unknown cause and 804 because of some other reasons. Among 254 victims of fire in these incidents, 58 expire, while the estimated financial loss due to these incidents is around Rs 8071.74 million.

Dr Rizwan Naseer, director general Rescue 1122, talking to The News on Sunday, maintains that there are multiple reasons of such incidents but the major are non-implementation of existing laws and lack of a proper land use and building control authority.

“There is a law that binds factories to have fire exits and put fire extinguishing systems in the factories and commercial buildings but this law is not implemented fully,” he says, adding, “Furthermore, with the local government system in 2001, we see that the town administrators/officers have the sole authority to check such system.”

Dr Naseer says there are many mafias in the system which is a hurdle in proper implementation of the existing law. There should not have been deaths in the recent factory fire incidents in Lahore and Karachi had there been fire exits. He says substandard wiring system is the main cause of short circuiting.

According to the management of the Rescue 1122, no casualty was reported in the worst fire incidents like at the City Tower, Auriga Centre, Liberty and few shopping malls in Lahore. These three markets have proper fire control equipment, water hydrants, and exit control setup.

We would have to take the first step but things cannot be corrected overnight. “We have recommended the government(s) to make use of building control authority and a proper check and balance system.” He says the first step should be to ensure fire exits for life safety. A law, authority, enforcement and accountability mechanism can take us to the way forward.

According to reports, fire incidents kill as many as 16,500 people and leave 164,000 injured almost every year across the country. This is because of lack of a national fire safety policy to control the situation. The reports read the amount of the property losses and insurance claims, on average, goes up to Rs 400 billion per annum. The incidents, mostly, happen in big cities and thick urban populations with big commercial buildings.

Prof Dr Muhammad Akram Tahir, Chairman Department of Architectural Engineering and Design of University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore, says that the architectural change in building is not an issue. There are all provisions in the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) and other building by-laws. The actual need is to ensure safety measures and implement those laws. “All designs of commercial and residential buildings are approved by LDA. There are inspectors to check the construction and keep inspecting even after that,” he says, adding, primary concern is to save lives so the construction and fire exits provision is an extremely important issue. He states that the role of state and political will is extremely important to ensure these safety measures. “We have to look at our land use, urban planning, and encroachments as per international standards followed by regular monitoring.”

“The government should be asked to implement a collective strategy for the prevention of such fires in residential as well as commercial areas; punish irresponsible people, issue fire equipment installation certificates to industrial units and ensure fire control measures through a proper way,” he adds.

vaqargillani@gmail.com

caption

Rescue operation at Bund Road. — Photo by Rahat Dar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Destination Waziristan
Two American anti-drone activists in Lahore share their plans 
By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed

Regardless of whether Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan succeeds in marching into Waziristan on October 7 or not, the momentum is building and prospective participants from abroad are finally flying into the country. Once here, they will use the time at their proposal to meet rights activists, campaigners, research organisations, lawyers representing drone victims, political figures and others to muster public support for the march.

While the organisers are busy convincing the authorities to issue visas promptly to human rights activists, media personnel etc, the lucky ones who have them by now are here or aboard Pakistan-bound flights.

Toby Blome and Dianne Budd, both anti-war activists and medical doctors from San Francisco, US, are among the very first to arrive. They reached Lahore on Wednesday last and attended several meetings, besides addressing a gathering at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and visiting Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital (SKMCH).

Sitting in a small dingy room of a low-budget inn at Regal Chowk, they talk to TNS on how the idea developed and they decided to embark on a risky journey against everybody’s advice. There was high security alert for foreigners inside Pakistan due to anti-US protests going on everywhere.

For Toby, a physical therapist from San Francisco Bay Area, Waziristan initiative will simply be the change of turf as she is vehemently opposing drones since 2003. A member of CODEPINK a women-initiated movement aimed at ending US funded wars and occupations, her point is they are against killing of human beings with robotic weapons controlled by people sitting thousands of mile away.

“Machines cannot identify terrorists from the innocent and every one killed in a drone attack is a terrorist until proven otherwise.”

Toby says drones are everywhere; they are doing surveillance on US borders from above and tracking movement of illegal immigrants, spying on protestors, watching civilian movements and what not. “The drones that kill people are predator drones and the worst of all. The smallest drone is the size of a finger tip and has wings like those of a bee.” The biggest push to the drone programme, she believes, comes for the corporate interests a proof of which is that the US has so far sold drone technology to 76 countries.

She along with her companion, Dianne Budd also a member of CODEPINK wants to meet drone affectees in Waziristan, heirs of those killed in strikes and people in general and share their true stories with the world. These stories she is dead sure, will be highly touching and not easy to be brushed aside. The problem with most US people, she believes, is that they do not exactly know what harm these attacks are causing. They are fed news through a corporatised and controlled media which hide facts and underreports human deaths, she adds. Both of them have organised and joined several protests at US drone bases such as those in Nevada, Marysville, California, Alabama, Mexico etc.

In worst case scenario, if the march is averted they hope to bring people from Waziristan to Islamabad and make them talk to the international media.

For those who follow news of anti-war movements, CODEPINK is a very well known. Formed in 2002, the name CODEPINK plays on the colour-coded homeland security alerts issued during Bush period. “There would be yellow, orange or red alerts signalling different levels of terrorist threats. We proposed something like “hot pink alert” but this domain was already a property of a porn website. So we settled for codepinkalert.org,” says Dianne while talking to TNS.

She wants to visit Waziristan and, on the basis of what she sees and hears there, plans to challenge US President Barak Obama who keeps on saying these machines kill terrorists with precision.

Dianne terms drone attacks a violation of human rights and a wrong way to tackle terrorism. “The margin of error is too high.” She tells TNS an organisation with the name of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sued the US government for killing a US national Anwar Al-Awlaki, a radical cleric and a native of New Mexico, while he was in Yemen. He was killed in a drone strike earlier this year when ACLU was in talks with authorities to get his name removed from the hit list. Some days later his 16-year-old son was also killed in another drone strike inside Yemen. All this happened inside the territory of Yemen which is not at war with the US.

Inclusion of his name in the hit list was a contentious issue but nobody was ready to wait. Dianne tells TNS that hardly any participant of the LUMS event, arranged by their faculty of law and policy, knew about this episode which shows people take drones issue lightly. The encouraging thing for her was that quite a few girls from the audience came to her and expressed their desire to join CODEPINK.

“We will sensitise the world on the issue and show them the truth,” she concludes.

capiton

Dianne Budd and Toby Blome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A case of unidentified bodies
How a man finds about his lost father
By Arshad Shafiq

“There may be so many people like me who might not have received dead bodies of their lost loved ones, held their funerals or buried them. The reason for such cases is that the authorities concerned don’t use modern and sophisticated methods that are used in developed countries to identify a dead body. I pray no one undergoes such torment I went through in search of my lost father. I went to mortuaries, hospitals, Edhi centres, 1122 Rescue centres and everywhere people told me I should go to, to find my 70-year-old father, an Alzheimer’s patient who left his house on June 13, 2012 and did not return,” says Chaudhry Kamran son of Chaudhry Sher Muhammad.

“After 17 days after my father went missing, I received a phone call from a man who told me that he was speaking from Khokhar Pind, a village along Bund Road, and he had just seen an advertisement in a newspaper about my missing father. He further told me that he and other villagers on the instructions of the police concerned buried my father two weeks ago after he was found dead near a canal in the village. Though the news was shocking, it was also relaxing for me and my family as it ended our mental torment we had been suffering for 17 days in search of our father, otherwise God knows how many more days we would have remained in such a terrible situation, had we not received the news of his death,” Kamran shared with The News on Sunday.

A resident of Sant Nagar, Chaudhry Kamran, said his father had lost his memory and he could not tell anybody his name and home address.

“In those days when he left the house the weather was hot and he may have died of heat,” says Kamran, adding the villagers told him that they insisted the police sends the dead body to mortuary but the police neither bothered to send the body to mortuary nor followed the legal procedure required before disposing of a body.

“Police is bound to send an unclaimed body to the dead-house and give an ad in a newspaper to search its heirs. If no one comes to take the body from mortuary then after thirty days the body is disposed of declaring it unclaimed. The police did not follow this legal procedure in my father’s case,” Kamran informs.

“Police and Rescue 1122 should use Nadra computerised system to identify a dead body. With the help of thumb impression, a dead body can be identified. If police or Rescue 1122 men find a body, they should take thumb impression of the dead body on a paper before sending it to mortuary and send the thumb impression to Nadra office. If the dead man had Nadra Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC), his bio-data can be known with the help of the thumb impression and the body can be identified and handed over to its relatives,” he says.

The painful tale of Chaudhry Kamran exposes many loopholes in the system through which the government is supposed to find the relatives of dead bodies. The system depends a lot on police, who don’t use computerised system to find the relatives of an unclaimed body. They just send the body to mortuary where it is disposed of after a month, declaring it an unclaimed body.

Talking to TNS, Abbot Road Nadra Registration Centre In charge Zarrar says, “A dead body, if it has CNIC, can be identified with the help of its thumb impression.”

Cantt Regional Nadra Office Media Coordinator Saleem Mahmood says, “Nadra is not directly involved in identifying dead bodies. It assists NGOs like Edhi to identify dead bodies but this assistance is available in Karachi or one or two big cities,” Saleem Mahmood adds.

shafiqnizami@yahoo.com    

 

 

 

 

caption

Rice field needs lots of water that brings the worms on the surface.


  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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