LAHORE, June 13: Recruitment of 10,000 volunteers from the provincial metropolis is proving to be an uphill task for the Civil Defence Organization due to the cold response from the public.

The lack of response to the efforts being made for enrolment of volunteers for civil defence training is evident from the fact that only 150 people reported at the district Nazim office in the district courts for joining the organization in response to the appeals made through the newspapers. Free uniforms and training were the only incentives offered to the volunteers.

The Civil Defence Organization exists mainly in the form of its official chain of command at present as 8,000 of its 10,000 workers have deserted it due to years of neglect on the part of the government and denial of mandatory funds by the civic authorities. The defunct Metropolitan Corporation of Lahore never complied with the mandatory provision of allocating one per cent of the budget for the civil defence. Even the city government released Rs5 million promised by district Nazim Mian Amer Mahmood a few months ago when tension with India increased.