LARKANA: Larkana Awami Ittehad (LAI) has demanded that Larkana Mayor Mohammad Aslam Shaikh should step down since he has failed to clear the city of rising piles of garbage, plug overflowing gutters and repair battered and potholed roads.

LAI convener Haji Munawwar Ali Abbasi, MPA Moazzam Abbasi of Grand Democratic Alliance and Nasir Mehmood Soomro, president of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl Larkana chapter, said at a press conference at Larkana Press Club here on Monday that they would stage a large sit-in outside the mayor’s office on Jan 24.

If the authorities failed to take notice of the sit-in they would then stage protest outside the Chief Minister’s House in Karachi, they warned.

They criticised the mayor’s performance and said that it was his sheer inefficiency that tractors, trolleys and other material which had been purchased for keeping the city clean were gathering rust in the office while the city had turned into one big junkyard.

They said that Pakistan Peoples Party had failed to serve Larkana over its 10-year tenure though the corporation had been receiving Rs65 million per month. The sight of battered roads, oozing gutters and piles of garbage everywhere spoke volumes for the ineptness of the municipal authorities, they said.

They complained that conditions in the five union councils where PPP’s opponents had won were the worst. They had made several appeals to the mayor but they had landed on deaf ears, they said.

In union council-10 as well where deputy mayor had retained his seat, 62 families had left for other areas because of stagnant sewage in streets and broken drainage system. Most of the main inter-city roads remained inundated in sewage but the men at the helm of affairs were perhaps in deep slumber, they said.

Amid such unhygienic conditions the entire population of the city faced the risk of catching dangerous diseases since underground water had already turned contaminated.

MPA Abbasi said that Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had been elected MNA from this constituency but he had perhaps no time to come back and see the plight of his city and its dwellers.

He complained that deputy commissioner and other functionaries did not pay heed to his calls for improving the city’s civic conditions. If the issue remained unresolved, he would raise voice at the floor of Sindh Assembly and token protests would be held regularly till then outside the mayor’s office to draw his attention to the city’s plight.

What was the use of applying cement pavers on roads at a cost of Rs390m while scores of employees of Larkana Development Authority were protesting for non-payment of salaries of three months and state of affairs at Chandka Medical College teaching hospital was fast deteriorating, he said.

The casualty department was ill-equipped and units of ophthalmology, orthopaedics at CMC Hospital and Shaikh Zayed Hospital for Women were of no use to poor patients, he said.

He alleged the administration, in collusion with the municipal corporation, had dismantled old houses and shops without prior notice in the name of removing encroachments and thereby inflicting heavy losses on their owners.

The LAI leaders said that the debris thus created added to existing piles of garbage which had caused nullahs to get choked and reduced space on roads and lanes.

They criticised rulers for loadshedding of gas and said that children were compelled to go to schools without having proper breakfast in the absence of gas. But the rulers were least concerned about people’s problems.

They said that they would try to get support of other groups and religious parties to launch an effective campaign against the mayor who, according to them, had miserably failed to deliver.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2019