LAHORE: As several parts of Lahore continue facing sanitation issues, the Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) says it has lifted 20,000 tonnes of waste from streets.

LWMC MD Imran Sultan, however, says the company has lifted more than 20,000 tons of solid waste from the city.

“We are trying hard to make this zero-waste operation successful by timely lifting of waste,” he said in a press release.According to an official source, the LWMC was working with old machines taken over from two Turkish contractors.

“The machinery is outlived and cannot perform well as it did in the past. Moreover, the company is facing hurdle in getting machinery on rent for the use of emergency purpose to clear such a huge backlog,” he told Dawn.

The two Turkish companies whose contract expired on Dec 31, 2020, condemned registration of an FIR against a Turkish company engaged in the metro bus operations.

“Shahbaz Gill’s FIR is another example of the continued witch hunt of the Turkish contractors. Mr Gill in a TV programme defamed the Metro bus operator company. He had claimed that the contract was awarded as a result of bribe and corruption. Following his irresponsible and baseless allegation, the company had also filed a criminal defamatory suit against Shahbaz Gill under Section 499, 500 of the PPC,” said a spokesperson for one of the companies — Albayrak, which is also engaged in the Metro bus operation.The residents are not impressed by the LWMC efforts.

“The heaps of waste have yet to be lifted in various parts of the city despite passing many days. Our area too has become so dirty,” Aslam a resident of a locality near Sukh Nehr stop (Shalamar) told Dawn.

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2021