BAHAWALPUR: Senior adviser Ijaz Qureshi of ombudsman secretariat has claimed that about 90 per cent of public complaints against federal departments have been decided within a period of two months.

Talking to the media along with ombudsman secretary Dr Jamal Nasir here on Wednesday, he claimed that around 95pc of the decisions made by the ombudsman in respect of public complaints were implemented by the respective departments.

He said disposal of complaints was expeditious with a view to redressing the genuine public complaints. “However, the mohtasib secretariat avoided to interfere in court matters.”

Qureshi said so far no bureaucrat had approached the mohtasib office to file complaint about any alleged harassment by the NAB.

To another question, Ijaz Qureshi said power distribution companies (Discos) were on the top against whom maximum public complaints were registered and disposed of. The complaints were about wrong meter readings which were decided in favour of consumers.

After Discos, National Database and Registration Authority failed to satisfy people, he said claiming that in 2018 the ombudsman office decided as many as 69,563 complaints out of total received 70,713 gripes.

DERAWAR FORT: A sum of Rs115.7 million would be utilised for the rehabilitation and preservation of the historic Derawar Fort in Cholistan.

This was stated by archaeology department deputy director (development) Ismatullah during a briefing to deputy commissioner Shozeb Saeed who inspected the rehabilitation work of the fort, about 70 kms from here.

It merits mentioning that the fort was in a precarious condition and the department had embarked upon its restoration about a year back.

The deputy director informed the DC that so far the department had spent a sum of Rs38 million on its facelift.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2019