10 November 2004	Wednesday	26 Ramazan 1425

GUJRAT, Nov 9: The provincial authorities have decided to take disciplinary action against the Gujrat district coordination officer and executive district officers of several departments for their alleged failure to comply with the directives sent by the chief minister's office during his tenure, it is reliably learnt on Tuesday.

Sources claimed that all the EDOs could be removed from their offices by the provincial higher-ups if the charge of non-compliance of orders was proved.

Sources in the DCO office informed this correspondent that the chief minister's office had sent around 1,300 directives to the DCO seeking complete compliance reports. The DCO office, they said, had forwarded all the directives to EDOs of the relevant departments but the chief minister received only 900 reports from different departments so far.

Taking cognizance of the issue, they said, the CM office had directed the provincial secretary to ask the Gujrat DCO to send compliance reports of all the issued directives. The secretary, in turn, had asked the DCO and the EDOs to send compliance reports immediately, otherwise punitive action would be taken against them.

The sources claimed that the DCO office had received around 900 compliance reports against as many CM directives from different EDOs. The EDOs had informed the DCO that they did not have any record of the remaining directives, and the matter was immediately brought to the notice of the district government by the DCO.

The DCO had requested the provincial authorities to send his office all the 1,300 orders, which would be forwarded to the relevant EDOs.

The district administration would send recommendations to the Punjab government for taking punitive action against those EDOs, who would be unable to comply with the directives after 15 days of receiving those afresh, said the sources.

Of the total 400 missing CM directives, they said, around 84 were found missing from the office of the EDO (finance & planning), 59 from EDO (revenue), 57 from EDO (community & development), 31 from EDO (works & services), 21 from EDO (health) and nine from the EDO (agriculture). The remaining 90 directives were found missing from the offices of other EDOs.

SEWERAGE PROJECT: Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has directed DCO Chaudhry Saadat Ali to make arrangements for laying sewerage in the city.

Earlier, the district government had made an agreement with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to carry out the project in the city. However, the agreement had to be cancelled for the reasons best known to both the two sides.

Now the CM has decided at a meeting that the sewerage project, estimated to cost Rs650 million, would be initiated by the Public Health Engineering Department and the district government.

The CM has directed the DCO to start the project from Dec 15 and make sure that it would be completed within a year.

ROBBERIES: Robbers took away a car and a motorcycle in two strikes in Kharian circle police area during the last 24 hours.

Six armed men stopped trader Taqi Husain near Noonanwali, snatched Rs350,000 in cash, a cell phone and a licensed pistol from him and drove away with his car (LRE-1990).

Kharian Saddar police have registered a case on the complaint of Taqi, a resident of Wazirabad.

Shahbaz was intercepted by four robbers near Kot Mungowal in Dinga and deprived of his motorcycle and a CD player at gunpoint.