January 4, 2002	Friday	Shawwal 19, 1422

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MULTAN, Jan 3: The district government spends only Rs4.21 per person annually while the public sector provides health cover to only 20 per cent population of the district.

This was stated by EDO (health) Dr Fazal Mahmood Khan while briefing participants in a seminar organized by the district social sector development forum in collaboration with Multi Donor Support Unit (MDSU) here on Thursday.

The EDO told them that there were 72 basic health units, eight rural health centres, 22 district council dispensaries, 23 municipal corporation dispensaries, a Civil Hospital, a THQ Hospital and a teaching hospital in the district. He said 80 per cent of the people in the district preferred visiting private health centres.

He said in private sector, around 661 hospitals, having 400 general practitioners, were in Multan besides 30 pathological laboratories. At least 500 quacks, 678 hakeems and 524 homeopathic doctors were practicing in the district, he added.

The EDO maintained some 14 per cent posts in the district health sector were vacant. He said there were at least 10,000 registered patients of tuberculosis in Multan.

Meanwhile, EDO (education) Hameed Raza Siddiqi told participants that there were as many as 1,824 schools in the district. Of them, 340 were without shelters, 285 needed major repairs and 565 minor, he added. He said around 487 schools were without the facility of drinking water while there was no electricity in 1,325 schools, adding some 997 schools were without lavatories.

The EDO said 867 schools had no boundary walls, 1,385 no playing grounds while 324 schools were without classrooms. Around 56 per cent children from 5 to 9 and 12 per cent children from 10 to 14 had never been to schools in their lives.

He said in rural Multan, some 70 per cent girls had never known schools while in boys the ratio was 53 per cent.

District Nazim Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, on this occasion, said misplaced priorities to various development projects had plagued the district with civic problems.

He said the most urgent project of sewerage had been ignored while a fly-over had been constructed at a cost of Rs450 million due to wrong policies of the previous government.

He said the district government was envisaging a three-year development plan comprising micro and mega projects from district to union council level.

He maintained Multan was an important industrial and agriculture city. He hoped the ‘Multan Model’ of development would encourage all other districts in the south Punjab to reset their priorities.

Mr Qureshi told participants that the government had allocated a sum of Rs50 million for the sewerage system for current fiscal and the practice would go on in the years to come.

He lamented at present, 45 per cent population of Multan was devoid of the sewerage facility, 39 per cent families had been living in a single-room houses while 44 per cent in Katcha Abadis.

Farmers in the district would soon be organized at union council level on the platform of farmers associates of Pakistan, the Nazim hoped.