RAWALPINDI/ISLAMABAD: The Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) finished cleaning the cantonment areas on Wednesday evening and removed more than 3,936 tons of offal and animal waste, while the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) claimed to have collected offal and remains of more than 75,000 animals over three days.

The RCB’s sanitation staff and administration were busy throughout Eidul Azha, removing offal and other animal remains.

All the waste was disposed of in a dumping ground five kilometres from residential areas.

3,936 tons of offal removed from cantonment areas in three days, remains of 75,000 animals removed in capital

The cleanliness drive began under the supervision of Cantonment Executive Officer (CEO) Sibtain Raza, Additional CEO Faisal Munir Watto and RCB Public Health Officer Waris Bhatti.

A total of 580 sanitation workers and 120 collection vehicles were deployed in the 10 wards of the cantonment.

The board also received 113 complaints from low-lying areas, from where garbage was then removed.

Elected RCB members Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, Haji Zafar Iqbal and Rasheed Khan expressed satisfaction with the sanitation work carried out in the last three days.

Mr Raza, the RCB CEO, told Dawn that a cleanliness operation was completed on Wednesday evening, and all sites have been washed.

He said lime has been spread around the city and phenyl sprayed to combat odour in areas where animals were slaughtered. He said 113 complaints were received in three days, and were resolved within an hour.

He praised the work of the sanitation department, which cleared the area and moved to waste from the transfer station in Chungi No.22 to the landfill.

Mr Wattoo said the cleanliness drive ended on the last day of Eid, but efforts to clear garbage in all the wards of the cantonment would continue.

He said the CEO had told the sanitation team to maintain this standard of performance.

He said the cattle market in Bhatta Chowk was also cleared of all kinds of waste.

In Islamabad, Director Sanitation Sardar Khan Zimri said more than 2,000 sanitation workers and more than 100 machines were part of an operation to remove animal remains and dispose of them properly.

He said that 70 ditches were dug in 37 places where animal remains were disposed of in a scientific manner. Some 90 complaints were received during the three-day effort, he said, and they were addressed rapidly.

Mr Zimri said that when Eid began, Islamabad was divided into five zones for the collection of offal and remains.

A statement said that Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz visited various areas to inspect the operation on Eid day and praised the work of the team. He also praised citizens who cooperated with sanitation workers, it said.

The mayor announced that the MCI would soon adopt modern technology to collect garbage for disposal.

While there is a system in place to collect garbage in the capital’s urban areas, there is no such system from homes in rural areas.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2019