LAHORE, May 12: Some 10,000 sanitary workers of the Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) will get their salaries for the month of April around half a month after due date.

A spokesperson said on Saturday a sum of Rs130 million had been arranged under the head of April’s salaries for all employees after LWMC and the Punjab Finance Department made collaborative efforts. The staff could draw their salaries from accounts on Monday (tomorrow).

The workers had been getting their wages on second of every month after the company took over the financial and employee management matters of the Solid Waste Management Wing of the City District Government of Lahore (CDGL) under an agreement with SAAMA in June last year. Before the takeover, the employees used to get salaries by the 20th of every month.

The Accountant General’s Office did not clear the pay bill of the company for the month of March. However, the company paid around Rs130 million salaries to the employees through its own account which was to be given by the CDGL.

The case pertaining to release of funds for salaries has been pending with the AG Office and hopefully a breakthrough will be made shortly.

ZERO-WASTE ZONE: The LWMC launched on Saturday a special cleanliness drive on the directions of the chief minister to prevent dengue.

The drive was launched from union council 38 near Pakistan Mint. The UC was divided into 10 parts and with the help of mechanical sweepers, arm rollers and dumpers approximately 120 tons of waste was collected and transported to Mahmood Booti dumping site.

More than 60 sanitary workers and sweepers of LWMC and employees of the Water and Sanitation Agency and the health department took part in this activity, supervised by company manager operations Asif Iqbal, assistant manager operations Mavra Khan and zonal officer Muhammad Nadeem.

After clearing the area of all waste, the union council was declared a ‘Zero Waste Zone.’

Later, company staff and social mobilisers distributed leaflets about cleanliness among the area residents and requested them to use containers for dumping waste instead of littering streets and roads.