SUKKUR: A multi-party conference organised by the Sukkur Small Traders has held elected representatives and senior politicians responsible for the dilapidated condition of the third biggest city of the province and vowed to launch a united struggle to get the nagging civic problems resolved.

The conference decided to cordon off elected representatives, hold sit-ins outside the offices of bureaucrats, stage meetings, protests, rallies and strikes to force the administration to improve living conditions for people.

Addressing the MPC here on Thursday night, local leaders of mainstream political, religious and nationalist parties, civil society organisations, trade unions, academic and professional forums said in unison that the city had turned into ruins and they had all come together to restore it to its past grandeur.

They said the city dwellers had to live with chronic civic problems of insanitation, choked and overflowing gutters, a dysfunctional drainage system and filthy sewage almost always flooding the roads and streets. Many areas were deprived of water supply while traffic gridlock had become a routine for several years, they said.

They said that almost all roads had developed potholes and large cracks despite heavy expenditure on their construction and the paved streets inside the localities had already destroyed.

They expressed serious concern over insufficient facilities for education and healthcare and regretted that even the Ghulam Mohammad Mahar Medical College had no building of its own since it had been established.

The leaders chalked out a plan for creation of awareness and said that people were required to stage protests, hold sit-ins in front of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah when he went to his native town on the weekend.

People should make him get down from his vehicle and take a tour of the city on foot to get the firsthand information about people’s problems, they said.

They said the poor had to face great difficulty seeking permission for excavating a road to lay water pipeline but it was not an issue for close relatives of influential people who easily got permission on the basis of fake documents to carry out illegal construction on occupied plots.

They said that almost all stakeholders were on the same page about the protest plan to rid the city of its chronic problems and formed a committee to launch a united struggle after finalising the protest plan which included cordoning off elected representatives, sit-ins in front of government offices, meetings, protests, rallies and strikes.

The conference decided that the committee would work on a permanent basis to get the city’s problems resolved and act as an intermediary between elected representatives and government officers to get the problems resolved in a peaceful manner.

Local leaders of PML-N, PML-F, PTI, MQM, JUI-F, JUP, Sunni Tehreek, Sunni Ittehad Council, STP, JSQM, Tanzeem Pakistani, the Sukkur Educational Network Foundation, Citizen Welfare Committee, Citizen Action Committee, Awami Jamhoori Party, cloth market trade association, Sukkur Shehri Ittehad, Gharib Nawaz Foundation, Tehreek-i-Jaffaria, Old Material Association, Katcha Bunder Association and Motor Works Association attended the MPC.

Published in Dawn, November 22th, 2014