August 25, 2007	Saturday	Sha’aban 11, 1428

JHANG, Aug 24: The District Council has unanimously passed a resolution demanding shifting of unauthorised bus terminals from Ayub Chowk and other congested areas to the general bus stand.

Tabling the resolution on Thursday, the chairman of the District Council’s standing committee on transport, Shiraz Akram, said he was himself a transporter but would like to take the initiative by shifting his bus stand to the general bus stand as such terminals in congested areas were causing traffic jams.

Expressing his views on floor of the house, District Coordination Officer Rizwanullah Baig said implementation of this resolution was not possible without full support and cooperation from the citizens.

Dr Abul Hassan, the nazim of the union council in which Ayub Chowk fell, said the DCO should take into account that the house, which represented 2.8million populace, was passing the resolution unanimously.

Criticising the administration for its reluctance to shift the illegal bus stands, Dr Hassan said: “It is not a lack of people’s support that prevents shifting of illegal terminals from congested areas. The fact of the matter is that a major bus terminal in a congested area is owned by sitting bureaucrat Sheikh Zafar Iqbal, who is a colleague of the DCO and a close friend of an MNA from Gujrat.”

According to Abul Hassan, the bureaucrat used different tactics to make the DCO not to shift his bus terminal to the general bus stand.

Dr Hassan also criticised the recruitment of new secretaries of union councils to replace the old ones, who had become fully conversant with their new jobs.

He termed the recruitments “pre-polls rigging” through which inexperienced people would be selected on a quota allotted to sitting MNAs and MPAs causing a huge loss to the exchequer.

ENCROACHMENT: A wall constructed by an auto parts dealer encroaching upon the footpath along the district coordination officer’s official residence still exists despite an opposition by the media and civil society organisations for the past one and a half year.

The four feet high and five feet long wall has completely encroached the

300-metre-long pedestrian’s way starting from western gate of the DCO’s House to the Sessions’ House, allowing other auto parts dealers to occupy the way to extend their shops.

The oil dealer uses the space in front of the western gate of the DCO’s House as a parking lot for customers who come there to get their engine oil changed or auto parts replaced. The matter was brought into the notice of former DCO times and again but to no avail. DCO Rizwanullah Baig was not available to comment despite repeated attempts.