Civic problems growing

The abolishment of the institution of municipality and establishment of tehsil government in its place has deprived the Dera city inhabitants of the leadership which knew its civic problems.

Under the new local government system, difficulties arising from lack of clean drinking water, cleanliness, failure to check encroachments and haphazard commercialization in residential areas could not be addressed.

The leadership of the rural union council obtained the top slot of tehsil government - tehsil Nazim - but ruled the city and the tehsil without any particular concern for civic amenities. Once the tehsil Nazim is reported to have said to protesters demanding clean drinking water that he was not answerable to them.

All small gardens, company bagh, the greenbelt and fountains at various crossings could not be restored while the residential areas are beset by commercialization. It is strange that there is no playground or garden specially for women and children in this city of over 0.2 million.

The deteriorating sewerage lines stretching over 86 kilometres are laid close to water supply pipes. The city dwellers are thus bound to get contaminated drinking water from the government water supply scheme.

The incidence of water-borne diseases has reached an alarming level. As many as 300 citizens visited a consultant at the DHQ Hospital here every month with a complaint of diseases communicated by the use of contaminated drinking water.

According to the hospital record, dysentery, typhoid, liver diseases specially hepatitis A, B and C are common in the city. The pathologist at the DHQ Hospital, Dr. Nadeem Chohan, told Dawn that preventive measures including the provision of safe drinking water were very important to control these diseases.

Dera Ghazi Khan is among the eight districts of Punjab where the ratio of arsenic in the sub-soil water is very high. The skin specialist at the DHQ Hospital, Dr. Shabir Birmani, said the disease arsenical keratoses was witnessed among the city dwellers in which the skin becomes dull and thick and loses its softness and shine.

Also found was Urticaria, a skin disease, afflicting 10 to 15 per cent of the city dwellers, which may even cause death. These diseases cannot be diagnosed properly due to lack of facilities at the DHQ Hospital. He laid stress on preventive methods, especially the provision of safe drinking water to the people.

Three water filtration plants established in the city after the introduction of the local bodies system are not working properly. Their filtered water is not pure and safe. People are purchasing drinking water from private companies which bring water from outside the city in cans. It is comparatively less risky for drinking.

Naib tehsil Nazim Hafiz Khalid Rauf said non-sanctioned employees were working at the filtration plants because the local government secretary did not grant them the authority to properly recruit workers.

Employees have not received salaries for the last one and a half years. He said the tehsil needed 50 men to maintain the sewerage and 55 for operating 24 tubewells, but it could not get approval to recruit them.

The Dera tehsil council has failed to frame rules and regulation to check the bane of commercialization of residential areas. Many residential blocks have been converted into markets.

A couple of weeks ago, the anti-corruption team raided the tehsil offices and confiscated the record of the annual development programme 2004-05 and directed the tehsil Nazim not to award tenders to contractors in this regard till further orders.

Opposition members in the district council session on Feb 28 demanded a discussion on the alleged corruption by tehsil Nazim Aasim Zubair Khosa. The demand was rejected by the convener on the plea that it was not the subject of the district council.

Aasim Zubair Khosa told Dawn that he was innocent and the matter of awarding ADP tenders was according to the rules and regulations, and soon he would himself award tenders in a transparent manner.