June 22, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 17, 1429

LAHORE, June 21: Rubble of the Punjab Civil Secretariat structures being demolished to create more room on the premises is a windfall for a supervisory officer who is allegedly picking and selling costly items to make ‘easy’ money.

The structures are being demolished under Chief Secretary Javed Mahmood’s instructions who had announced that the rubble and junk was a gift to the civil secretariat low-grade employees.

The latest part of the gift is the rubble of 31 residential quarters situated at the rear of the secretariat. And to the good luck of the beneficiaries, 21 more are to be demolished.

Sources say many of the low-grade employees have generated a lot of money by selling the rubble. However, they add, the key beneficiary of the CS’s generosity is a supervisor who eyes the costly items in the rubble and then sells them in the market. So far, he has sold bricks, girders, wooden and iron windows and doors, they say.

The supervisor’s biggest hunt, so far, is the huge iron gate which would separate the secretariat mosque and its rear, costing at least Rs50,000, the sources say.

They say the official has also sold bricks and iron grills from the rubble of the nearly 100-foot long and 7-foot high boundary wall and four washrooms near the mosque, which were recently demolished just one month after their construction.

The sources say the supervisor first purchased a piece of land from the “rubble income” across the Ravi and is now building a house on it through the same.

The say some residents of the demolished quarters sold the rubble even before the demolition of their quarters but again the main beneficiary was the supervisor who got hold of everything worth a price.

“We have demolished structures and quarters worth millions of rupees, and are doling out their equally costly rubble. This is government money which is being wasted,” a source said.