HYDERABAD, July 23: The city Nazim, Hyderabad Taluka, Haji Moinuddin Shaikh has said that he had not received a single paisa of the stipulated octroi fund and the employees had not received their wages for the month of June.

He was speaking at a news conference at the Jinnah Hall of the city council on Tuesday.

He said that if the funds were not released, the situation would become unmanageable and the consequences would be disastrous.

He said that he had confirmed information that the workers were planning to go on strike, and added that Hyderabad could not afford even a one-hour strike at this critical juncture.

He said if the workers went on strike, the pumping stations will come to a halt and the whole city will be submerged under dirty water.

He appealed to the government to release the salary funds of the workers without any delay.

He demanded the Sindh governor to order an inquiry against the chief engineer, Kotri barrage, and the superintendent engineer for their criminal negligence regarding the overflowing of the canal.

HESCO: The city Nazim was equally critical of the issuance of detection and inflated bills to the consumers.

He said that while the people were starving, HESCO was issuing bills to the tune of thousands of rupees to the poor consumers.

He said that the bills of power looms and other industrial units with which the SDOs had entered into a bargain were being transferred to the poor people.

He wondered why detection bills were not being issued to the “big fish”.

Answering a question as to what amount of the retired employees under the head of pension, gratuity, and provident fund remained outstanding, the city Nazim said that the total dues stood at Rs60 million.

CANAL BREACH: The Nazim criticized the chief engineer, Kotri barrage, and superintendent engineer saying that a major portion of Hyderabad had been inundated due to the overflowing of the Phuleli and Pinyari canals but despite his best efforts during the past week, he had not been able to get in touch with these two officials.

He said that the chief engineer was more interested in getting his photographs published for deriving political mileage than saving the people of ‘G’ ward, the biggest ward of the country, with a population of 600,000 from drowning.

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