A long wait for drainage scheme

RESIDENTS are eagerly waiting for the realization of their dream about the launching of a comprehensive sewerage and drainage scheme in the city, which the last district government had promised for long.

The present drainage system was designed for the central part of the city as early as 1960-62. Between 1982 and 1990, it was modified but it failed to meet the needs of the growing city. A number of new colonies, many of them illegal, had come up. When these colonies were linked up with the sewerage system, it stopped functioning properly creating hardships for the people.

These new residential colonies which were supposed to lay their own sewerage system, were developed with the blessings of the officials of the defunct municipal corporation. Several new colonies including Muhammadia Colony, Rehmat Colony, Trust Colony, Sadiq Colony, Cheema Town, Islami Colony, Bindra Basti, Quaid-i-Azam Colony and Jalwana Town were developed and approved by government officials. But they are still without their own sewerage system.

According to a survey, there were about 170 residential colonies which were set up without the approval of maps and layouts by the defunct municipal corporation, and for this reason their residents were without a proper drainage system. The residents had constructed their own septic tanks which created nuisance for them.

According to an estimate, the city uses over 10 million gallons of water daily. A large quantity of it submerges into different grounds, plots, streets and roads polluting the atmosphere. It also contaminates the underground water causing epidemic diseases. In order to drain out the sullage daily, the sewerage system requires remodelling and modern machinery. There is also a need of more sanitation staff.

THE provincial local government in collaboration with the UNDP has launched the gender justice project through union councils ‘musalihat anjumans’ in Bahawalpur district and Attock, the two selected districts of Punjab.

In this connection, a training workshop for the UC nazims and women councillors was organized here. Punjab project coordinator Khalid Mahmood Baig, while explaining the objects of the project at the concluding ceremony, said after the project proved a success in two districts, it could be launched in other districts of the province.

DCO Mohammad Ashraf, who gave away certificates to the trainee participants, urged remedy for gender injustice, gender discrimination and violence against women. UC nazim Liaqat Lodhi, Malik Mohammad and councillors Nasreen Anwar and Nasreen Ghauri also addressed.

AT the inaugural ceremony of the first modern and newly-developed SAW-Gin machine at the Bismillah factory here, federal industries minister Jahangir Tareen stressed the need for improvement of the equality of ginned cotton along with steps for contamination-free cotton.

He said on the recommendations of the task force set up under the supervision of Masood Majeed Chaudhry, the new machine had been developed with the technical assistance of Pakistan’s Engineering Development Board.

He opined the ginning factories should replace outdated and old machinery with the new one, whose standard would be thoroughly checked by the Pakistan Cotton Standardization Institute. He said the performance of the new machine was higher as compared to the older ones.

GCC’s silver jubilee passes without fanfare

FOR the past three years the waterfront in Abu Dhabi has been in chaos. Dredgers worked around the clock pumping sand from the seabed to reclaim land on which to build new roads, bridges, underpasses and gardens.

The work was completed several months ago and the UAE capital now boasts an elegant Corniche, stretching for some 10 kilometres, fronting the city’s high-rise skyline.

While residents will enjoy the facility — right around the year, even in the hot months, it is a popular destination for walkers and joggers — the main aim of the work was to present a beautiful face of the city to the heads of state who gathered in Abu Dhabi last week for a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the GCC.

I have no doubt that the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman, as well as the UAE were impressed by the Corniche as they were whisked along in their stretched, blacked-out, limos. And if they weren’t, they must surely have looked twice at the venue of the meeting, the Emirates Palace Hotel. These guys are experts on palaces — they were born and have lived their lives in them — but in this land where Arabian fantasies are commonplace, I doubt if any of them have a property more spectacular than this hotel.

It’s a massive complex set in rolling gardens on the beach at the end of the Corniche. “A majestic experience fit for a king and deserving of an emperor,” says the publicity blurb. Even in the Emirates where we tend to run out of superlatives as each new hotel is opened, this one really is special. I would like to report that the venue provided inspiration for the leaders to seriously address some of the region’s problems and issues but regret that they continued with the time-honoured tradition of talking and issuing a nondescript communique. The GCC was set up in 1981 so this year was its 25th anniversary — hence Abu Dhabi wanting to put on an impressive show. The main reason for its formation was the feeling of vulnerability among the six states caused by the war on the other side of the Gulf between Iran and Iraq that had broken out a year or so earlier.

I remember being at the first meeting, which was also in Abu Dhabi. As is usual at such international events, the leaders gave set speeches, largely reiterating established views and drew up a long list of areas of possible cooperation and aims for working together in the future.

A quarter of a century later, little has been achieved. There was an agreement on mutual defence cooperation reached in the ‘80s, but when the chips were down with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Peninsula Shield, as it was called, could do little more than offer token assistance to the US forces.

Talks of a common market and common currency have remained subjects to be regularly brought out of the cupboard for occasional discussion.

Indeed, there are some parallels with the development of Saarc that has, for reasons that are well documented, achieved little in the way of regional cooperation, although has, on occasions provided opportunities for dialogue between leaders that might not have otherwise taken place.

I was also at the first meeting of Saarc in Dhaka in 1985 and, for a time, actually believed it might achieve a little of what it set out to do. However, it soon became obvious that some will was lacking. I well remember hanging out with a group of journalists on a beautiful island in the Maldives while South Asian foreign ministers held a meeting at which great things were expected.

The journalists didn’t complain too much about the waiting. Palm fringed beaches are definitely preferable to the usual media centres but most of us did feel slightly guilty and wondering how we were going to justify the trip when the Bangladeshi foreign minister emerged to tell us of the big breakthrough in discussions. “We have agreed the date for the next meeting,” he said triumphantly. And that was it.

Last week’s GCC meeting actually achieved little more, although did manage to dress the result up more effectively. The Gulf states are worried about Iran’s nuclear programme, but despite lengthy discussion, decided only to criticize Israel’s programme. They did, however, reiterate the UAE claim to three islands in the Gulf that Iran invaded on the eve of the formation of the UAE in 1971 and has occupied ever since, but there was nothing new there.

There was some talk about limiting the number of expatriates in the Gulf, but a proposal to limit their stay to six years was quickly rejected — not surprising when places such as Dubai are encouraging expats to stay and have unearthed a goldmine by selling them property. Alternatively they thought about a quota system for foreign labour but that was also left on the shelf ‘for more discussion’. And there it will remain for every country has differing needs for manpower, depending on their widely differing development programmes.

The media from all around the region turned up in force, ostensibly to cover the meeting. More than 600 journalists were accredited but apparently less than 200 actually went to the press centre. It was rumoured that the rest had taken the 90-minute trip to Dubai and its shopping malls.

And now the circus has left town, leaving behind a magnificent waterfront and a splendid hotel.

I WAS just getting ready to go out one evening through the week when there was a ring of the doorbell. A man was asking everything from how many people lived in the house to how many computers we have.

It is national census time in the UAE and enumerators are going door to door attempting to collect statistics. Unfortunately they are having a hard time.

The problem is that so many people work illegally in the Emirates and they disappear at the first sight of officialdom in any form.

For instance, housemaids are only supposed to work for the person who sponsors them but in reality many maids find someone who will sell them a visa and then make their living working for several different families. So when the maid sees somebody with a clipboard at the door she automatically assumes it is an investigator from the labour ministry.

Similarly there are thousands and thousands of construction workers who have either entered the country illegally or whose visas expired many years ago. They live in constant fear of a raid by the immigration authorities.

Naturally nobody is ready to take the assurances of the census office that all information will be kept confidential and so I fear that this census is going to be incomplete. An added problem is that many of the census personnel, who have all been recruited on short-term contracts, speak only Arabic, which means they can’t communicate with a large proportion of the population.

According to the census officials, 4,000 enumerators have been employed and just 200 are UAE nationals, an indication of the country’s population breakdown, which might be confirmed in the results of the census.