MUZAFFARGARH: As the labour department and the district administration look the other way, the brick kiln owners are using used mobil oil, old clothes and plastic as fuel in kilns in Muzaffargarh district.

Up to 148 brick kilns are registered here and most of them are violating standard operating procedures (SOPs).

A source associated with brick trade said as the administration was busy with coronavirus control, the owners of brick kilns were sending poisoning flames into space.

He said the kilns were manufacturing low-quality bricks while each owner had its own rates.

Over a dozen kilns can be seen along Qasba Gujrat and Chowk Qureshi roads and all of them are using used mobil oil, old clothes and plastic resulting in toxic stink in the area.

Residents said they were not as afraid of coronovirus as of the poisonous air created by the kilns. They said children were developing respiratory diseases.

Allah Wasaya, a resident of Qureshi Chowk, told Dawn that some two years back the PML-N government took action against kiln owners for using husk and plastic and also banned child labour at kilns. In those days, 34 cases were registered against owners.

The then government also issued scholarship cards to labours’ children for school enrollment and set up literacy schools. The PTI government also did a remarkable measure by ordering the kilns to get zig zag technology.

A labour officer told this correspondent that all department were busy with quarantine centres but the department would take stern action into violation of laws.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2020