Suthra Punjab’ Targets Zero Waste Across Cities, Villages

News Desk

Rawalpindi: Provincial Minister for Local Government and Community Development, Zeeshan Rafique, announced that the “Suthra Punjab” initiative, launched under the directives of Chief Minister Punjab, aims to ensure zero waste in cities and villages.

In a meeting held at the Commissioner’s Office, Rawalpindi, Rafique highlighted the environmental sustainability and cleanliness objectives of the program.

Officials from Rawalpindi Waste Management Company provided a briefing on current steps being undertaken for the program. The Punjab Government is supplying the necessary resources to facilitate 100 percent cleanliness across the province.

He said that outsourcing of cleanliness and sanitation system in rural areas would ensure manual, mechanical sweeping, waste collection, drain cleaning and waste disposal. Local government department would monitor the outsourcing system digitally, he said.

The monitoring would include biometric attendance, vehicle tracking management system, vehicle weighing at dumping site, digital monitoring of the fleet and container clearance through geo-tagging and prompt resolution of the complaints, the minister informed.

At district level, a control room under the supervision of Assistant Commissioners is being built in the Deputy Commissioners Office and in each Tehsil, Zeeshan Rafiq said adding, to ensure full participation of the public in the sanitation system, an App ‘Saaf Rawalpindi’ and a toll-free number 1139 have been launched.

The citizens could get registered their complaints for which the contractor would be given two to three hours time to resolve them, he added.

So far, 17 Union Councils (UCs) across the division have been outsourced for ‘Suthra’ Punjab programme. The outsourcing is in progress in four UCs and pre-qualification have been completed.

The UCs which have completed the outsourcing process would enter the first operational phase before December 1, the minister was informed.

The sanitation system would become operational in UCs where outsourcing is in process and a target of January 1, 2025 has been set in this regard.