NAROWAL: Scores of residents of Shakargarh city’s Manzoor Colony have protested against the district administration and municipal authorities for not fixing the main sewerage pipeline that has been choked for the last one month.

The residential colony has been plagued by sewage that, people allege, is the result of the non-functional pipeline that is choked by filth and mud due to negligence of sanitary workers. As the streets are in a bad shape, people are forced to go to their offices, workplaces and shops by wading through the dirty water. Students of schools and colleges, and seminaries are seen going through the streets with shoes and socks in their hands -- an exercise they repeat while returning home.

The old and the young cannot go to mosques as many cases of people hurting themselves after falling in the streets have been reported. The household who do groceries have to go through the torment of using streets daily.

Local residents Muhammad Imran and Malik Tahir say sewage and rainwater have wreaked havoc on the graveyard.

“We have filed applications to the authorities concerned many times but they have turned a deaf ear to our plight,” say Master Suleman and Rana Tayyib. “Our children and the old are falling sick due to exposure to filth and odour,” they say.

Muhammad Aashir Khan and Farhan Ali say there are more than 1,000 houses at Manzoor Colony and the residents of Sargalah Colony also use the street.

“We complained to the deputy commissioner and also shared our concern at the complaint cell of Chief Minister Usman Buzdar but no one has bothered to look into the issue. People are frustrated at the situation and wonder what government’s ‘clean and green Pakistan’ initiative is meant for,” they say.

Pervez Akhtar, chief officer, Municipal Committee, Shakargarh, says the issue of Manzoor Colony residents is in the knowledge of the officials who are helpless because of unavailability of funds.

No development work had been done in many areas in the past as a result of which roads and streets are in a state of disrepair, he says. However, he says, the sanitary workers are trying to open the sewerage pipeline.

The hapless residents have demanded that Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief Minister Usman Buzdar take action against the negligent officials and have their issue solved.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2020