LARKANA, Jan 24: Admitting a petition of the president and general secretary of the Larkana District Bar Association seeking better rail service for the town, the Sindh High Court circuit bench issued notices on Wednesday to the federal government, the general manager of Pakistan Railways and its divisional superintendent at Sukkur, seeking comments from them by Feb 19.

The petitioners, DBA president MPA Ayaz Soomro and general secretary Abdul Hamid Bhurgri, invoking the extraordinary constitutional jurisdiction of the SHC, requested the court to direct the respondents to arrange proper train service for Larkana residents by running daily night coach and express service to Karachi.

The petitioners said advocates from Karachi travelled to Larkana to plead cases at the bench and those from Larkana regularly went to the provincial capital.

They said the railways had ignored Larkana and its adjoining areas in extending facilities, while the constitution guaranteed equal and adequate facilities to all the regions.

They said there was virtually no train service from Larkana to Karachi, Punjab and Balochistan, while along the left bank of River Indus several trains travelled to Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Peshawar.

The journey by road was unsafe and uncomfortable as there was no good highway, they said.

District council: The district council of Larkana in its Wednesday’s session asked the education officials to clear the encroachment from the primary school of Haidri locality and initiate action against the land mafia. Iqbal Soomro, nazim of union council-6, while moving a resolution in this regard, indicated that land mafia had encroached upon the plot of the school.

The convener, Badar Abbasi, in his ruling, asked the executive district officer (education) to take action and report to the council within a week.

Ali Gohar Bhatti, nazim of Waleed union council, pointed out the unhygienic conditions in the area and called for early repair and extension of the damaged sewerage system.

Khair Mohammed Shaikh, endorsing the move, called for urgent arrangements to address the problem immediately. The convener called for preparation of schemes and tabling them before the house for approval.

Addressing the session, District Nazim Mohammad Bakhsh Arijo urged the council members to submit their schemes not exceeding Rs1.5 million by March so that they could be incorporated in the next budget.

He also apprised the house about 300 new and old development schemes being carried out in different sectors at a cost of Rs323 million.