THE polio teams keep visiting my house almost every month to check if there is any child in the house needing polio drops. Although they are always told that there is no child in the house since the last many decades, their visits and queries continue. They are doing their job, and I have no issues with that, but what I do have an issue with is the practice of the team members to maintain their record related to their visits to the area on the main gate of my residence in Phase V of the Karachi’s Defence Housing Authority (DHA). The accompanying image shows part of the mess on that poor gate.

Instead of entering this information in their register, they prefer to use the main gate as some sort of a display board to show their efficiency to the superiors. They do not use other gates in the vicinity for this purpose either because of the fear of residents or the presence of guards. Those supervising these polio teams should tell them to write the visit information in their registers instead of spoiling gates.

Parvez Rahim
Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 23rd, 2025