LARKANA, Feb 15: Expressing concern over poor situation of sanitation facilities, roads, overflowing gutters and awful sewerage system in Larkana city, the federation of traders association (FTA), a representative body of 27 small trade bodies, has announced that they will launch a protest campaign from Saturday.

The president of the FTA, Tarique Nazeer Sheikh, on Friday chaired the general body meeting of the association in which it was observed that the poor sanitation and other civic facilities in the city were causing many problems to traders, businessmen and the public.

The FTA prepared a 15 point statement of demands.

The participants in the meeting regretted that despite repeated meetings with elected representatives and reminding them time and again through letters of the deteriorating hygienic conditions in the city, they turned a deaf ear to solving their problems.

Mr Tarique alleged that inaction of the municipal administration and the management of North Sindh Urban Services Corporation had compounded the health problems of the people in Larkana city.

The government apathy had left millions of rupees projects of internal roads to ruin and exposed the population to face epidemics, they said.

“The protest will start with the distribution of pamphlets followed by observing token hunger strikes and shutter-down strikes for three hours and finally a complete closure of the city,” said Mr Tarique.

The FTA demanded that the shortage of sanitation staff was resolved in order to improve the sanitation system in the city.

They demanded that city garbage was regularly lifted from fixed bins and rubbish dumps.

The meeting called for immediate covering of open manholes with lids as they had become deathtraps while small drains should be connected with the main drain to avoid frequent overflowing of sewage on small lanes.

The ineffective working of disposal pumps due to small number of operators employed had become a regular problem, the participants in the meeting said and called for employing more operators to address this issue.

The FTA urged the authorities concerned to play their role in resolving the genuine issues of Larkana.