LAHORE, Jan 2: The lives of 24 families at Lahore Zoo’s residential colony are in danger as the quarters are in an advance stage of decay.

The apathy of the authorities concerned to this grave matter leaves one in a state of shock. These structures were declared dangerous nine months ago.

A survey team of the Building Research Station of the Punjab Buildings Department (South Zone) inspected these quarters in April last year and declared the complex unfit for living, advising the authorities to get them vacated.

The proverb “Home is where the heart is” sounds puny while looking at the adverse condition of these quarters located adjacent to the Chief Minister Secretariat – the crown office. The residential colony presents a dismal picture of disgruntled residents living in quarters with detached, broken roofs, exposed steel bars, propelled out chunks of concrete, ruffled plasters and bricks edging out of wall lines.

Despite repeated requests by the residents to the Punjab government to order reconstruction of these quarters, there hasn’t been a green signal so far.

Sources said the Lahore Zoo right after the survey submitted a proposal to the Punjab government, requesting immediate reconstruction of these quarters. The Zoo management also insisted that reconstruction of these quarters was unavoidable as the colony housed zoo staff which could be called any time for urgent work.

Look after of animals, night rounds and monitoring at the zoo area are done by the staff in the colony. Allocation of Rs100 million was requested in the proposal which was kept in the “pending tray”.

The Zoo affairs are run by the Zoo Maintenance Committee which is selected for a term of three years. The former committee had completed its term four or five months ago and its non-official members haven’t been selected so far.

Lahore Zoo Director Muhammad Shafqat told Dawn that the supplementary grant could not be allocated by the Punjab government due to financial crunch but a PC-I was under consideration and it would be included in the ADP of next financial year.