GUJRAT: Only 43 candidates have applied against 117 reserved seats for minorities in rural union councils of Gujrat district; 830 candidates have applied against 585 reserved seats for women, peasants, youth and minorities in 117 union councils (UCs).

Minority candidates were mainly Christians, but due to lack of interest shown by other communities, a large number of the seats reserved for minorities would remain vacant.

A good number of candidates belonging to non-Muslim communities have turned up to contest for the district council as well as Municipal Corporation and six municipal committees of the district.

According to data seen by this correspondent, in rural UCs 350 women have applied against 234 seats, 231 against 117 seats for peasants, 206 for 117 seats of youth and only 43 for 117 seats for minorities.

For district council’s 33 reserved seats, 33 women have applied for 15 seats, six filed papers for six seats for farmers, 13 against six technocrat seats, 10 against five seats for minorities and four candidate appeared for a lone seat for youth.

In Gujrat Municipal Corporation, 23 candidates filed nomination papers against nine reserved seats, including five for three women seats, seven for two labour, five for technocrats and four on lone seat for minorities.

In Jalalpur Jattan, Kunjah, Lalamusa, Kharian, Dinga and Sara-i-Alamgir municipal committees, 87 candidates submitted nomination papers, including 35 for women seats, 20 labourers, 18 youth and 14 minorities.

Streetlights: The streetlights have been installed along Jalalpur Jattan Road from Rehman Shaheed Road to Boley Chowk with a sum of Rs9 million invested by a local advertising firm.

District Coordination Officer Liaquat Ali Chatha and TMA Administrator Irfan Ali Kathia inaugurated the streetlights at a ceremony held at Court Chowk on Saturday.

The DCO said the LED lights had been installed and made functional to lighten the city roads which would also help in curbing street crimes.

He said such lights had earlier been installed on GT Road, Sargodha Road and Court Road.

Mr Kathia said the TMA would ensure that these streetlights remained functional regularly.

He said a local advertising firm was given the rights of using the streetlights poles for publicity purposes for five years. He said the advertising firm would also be responsible for the maintenance of streetlights.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2016