RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) launched a week long sanitation drive on Monday in order to clean to cantonment areas and to encourage people to dump waste in trash containers.

However, instead of actually cleaning streets and roads, the drive was limited to the distribution of pamphlets urging people to not throw garbage in the streets.

Interestingly, the elected vice president of the civic body and other elected members did not attend the launching of the campaign, which was attended by senior officials only.

When asked, RCB Vice President Raja Jehandad Khan said: “I was not feeling well which is why I did not attend the launch of the campaign.

The other elected members were also told about the drive late last night which is why they did not attend”.

RCB spokesperson Qaiser Mehmood told Dawn that the campaign was launched in order to improve the sanitation condition of the Cantt and that the drive will not be limited to specific areas.

A similar campaign was launched three months ago and had met with a positive response from residents which is why RCB decided to launch sanitation drives in order to improve the way sanitation workers work and also to sensitise residents, he said.

“Sanitary workers lifted 368 tons of garbage on Monday from various areas which tool 11 dumpers, five trucks and 20 small vehicles to transport”, he said.

Mr Mehmood added that the campaign will continue till June 5 and that sanitation workers work hard on cleaning the Cantt areas.

However, in the cantonment areas, sanitation workers are only deployed around military offices and housing colonies, Peshawar Road and Saddar while people hire the services of private sanitary workers to clean in other areas.

A senior RCB official told Dawn that the board had not yet procured land for a landfill site where garbage collected from streets and roads can be dumped, which is why RCB workers dump garbage at various places, including on Chakri Road.

He said the landfill site at Dhoke Gujran was vacated a few years ago and that plans were being drawn to turn the site into a housing scheme.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2016