KARAK: Assistant commissioner Abdus Samad Nizamani on Tuesday sealed four stone crushing plants and a plaster of Paris factory for causing pollution in Karak tehsil.

He along with assistant director environment Younas Khan paid surprise visits to the factories and crushing plants set up in the residential areas of Nari Panos on public complaints.

Talking to mediapersons on the occasion, AC Nizamani said the said factories were sealed as these were operating in residential areas without obtaining NOCs. He resolved to continue crackdown on such factories.

Meanwhile, elders of Chongi area expressed concerns over the increasing pollution in the area due to the operation of crushing plants and plaster of Paris factories as people were contracting diseases borne out of contaminated water and polluted air.

They demanded of the authorities to seal such units operating without any legal justification. They resolved to extend full support to the district administration in that regard.

FUNDS RELEASED: The Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) has released Rs200 million for solarisation of government departments and water supply schemes falling in the oil and gas-rich three union councils of the district.

Sources in OGDCL said on Wednesday that the initiative had been taken in Jandri, Sabirabad and Jatta Ismail Khel union councils. They said the facility would be extended to other parts of the district in the second phase.

The sources claimed that the elected representatives also planned to solarise the three tehsil headquarters hospitals in Karak, Takht-i-Nusrati and Banda Daud Shah and the district headquarters hospital to rid the health facilities of the menace of power loadshedding and low-voltage.

They said the water supply schemes would be put on solar power on a priority basis to ensure uninterrupted water supply to the people across the district.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2019