RAWALPINDI, Nov 5: The City District Government Rawalpindi (CDGR) Municipal Services department on Monday asked Rawal Town Municipal Administration (RTMA) and Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) to cover 60 manholes before the month of Muharram.

On the directives of Executive District Officer Municipal Services Imtiaz Malik, District Officer (DO) Solid Waste Management Dr Mazhar Azeem visited the city to review the sanitation arrangements for Muharram and found most of the manholes uncovered.

These manholes are located at Jamia Masjid Road, Imambargah Qadeemi Road, Bohar Bazaar, Iqbal Road, Khyaban-e-Sir Syed, Dhoke Khabba and Commercial Market.

Upon discovering this, the DO wrote a letter to civic bodies of the city to cover the manholes to avoid any untoward incident during the month of Muharram.

“It is the duty of RTMA and Wasa to cover the manholes on the main roads, where mourning processions of Muharram take place,” said Dr Mazhar Azeem while talking to Dawn.

He said that the department also started a survey of the city to identify the dilapidated roads on Muharram routes for the safe passage of the processions.

He said that the department also asked the civic bodies to lift the building material waste from different parts of the city for Muharram.

“More than 200 sanitary workers Computerised National Identification Cards copies have been sent to the Special branch for security check as these sanitary workers will be deputed along Ashura and other mourning related processions from Muharram 1 to 10,” he said.

Rawal Town Administrator Saif Anwar Jappa told Dawn that the RTMA had already started work to cover the manholes in the city.

He said that the contract to cover 500 manholes across the city had been awarded to a private firm at the cost of Rs4.2 million and the work would be completed before the start of Muharram. —Aamir Yasin