BAHAWALPUR: The Punjab Wildlife Department is planning to revive the Safari and adjacent Lala Sohanra Park in Cholistan.

The department has drawn up the plan which it will submit to the government for approval.

Bahawalpur Division Deputy Director Wildlife Rai Zahid Ali told Dawn that the government planned to fill around 200 posts of security inspectors, vouchers, guides, drivers and security force who would be provided motorcycles and other vehicles to strictly enforce the supervision of animals lodged in the enclosures. The park would be set up over 330 acre at a cost of Rs10 billion and be part of PM’s Clean and Green Pakistan, he said.

Efforts would be made, he said, to provide recreational facilities to people in Cholistan and natural habitat for breeding of the wildlife.

It had been proposed to set up a sanctuary over 500 acre for breeding of black bucks in Cholistan. The black bucks were originally from the desert but after their extinction, the children of Holland had contributed from their pocket money with which the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) had donated the black bucks to Pakistan in 1962 for their breeding at the National Park Lal Sohanra.

Rai Zahid claimed that as the officials of the wildlife department during their field duty had noticed the presence of eight to 10 Indian bustards in Cholistan, there was also a plan to save the species for which a sanctuary over 4,670 square km had been proposed by the Punjab government.

ACCIDENT: A woman was killed while two other persons were injured when a car hit a motorcyclist on Hasilpur Road near Baghdadul Jadid campus here on Thursday.

Officials of the Rescue 1122 shifted the injured to the Bahawal Victoria Hospital (BVH).

LAND RECORD: Deputy Commissioner Irfan Ali Kathiya on Thursday paid a surprise visit to a land record office at Saddar tehsil and reprimanded an assistant director for poor service delivery to the visiting farmers and insanitary conditions. The DC ordered improvement of sanitary conditions and service.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2021