Sanitation breakdown leaves villages drowning in waste

FAISALABAD: Residents of four villages and nearby settlements in Union Council 182 have lodged a complaint over what they describe as continued poor sanitation services, nearly 18 months after waste management work was outsourced.

In a complaint submitted to the Suthra Punjab Authority Lahore against the Suthra Punjab Agency Faisalabad and its contractor, residents of Chak 4 JB Arfa Karim Nagar said key sanitation benchmarks were not being met in their area. They said waste management, door-to-door garbage collection, cleanliness of roads and streets, reduction of open dumping sites, complaint handling, availability of machinery, staff attendance, recycling arrangements and drain cleaning had not been carried out effectively.

The complainants also said no proper waste enclosure or designated dumping point had been set up in the union council, leaving local communities to handle solid waste on their own. The complaint has raised questions over the performance of both the agency and the firm hired to carry out the work.

UC 182 Vice Chairman Chaudhry Arshad Waheed said the contractor’s performance was being tracked through a real-time dashboard linked to field data, complaints and staff performance, but added that the situation on the ground did not match that monitoring system. He alleged that sanitation workers only visit rural localities from time to time and that regular waste collection is not being provided as required.