BAHAWALPUR: As the Punjab government has not restored the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) funds to the tune of over Rs60 million, it has adversely affected uplift projects pertaining to beautification of city’s parks and greenbelts.

Dawn learnt that the Punjab government in the early months of the current calendar year had sanctioned and released a sum of Rs60 million for PHA’s two uplift projects. These projects were aimed at improving, maintaining and renovating the local parks with a view to provide maximum facilities to the citizens.

After the induction of the PML-N government headed by Maryam Nawaz in the province, these funds were withdrawn on an assurance that the same would be restored as soon as possible. But these funds have not been restored so far as a result PHA’s two main projects have been lying pending at the cost of local citizens.

Dawn also learnt that due to an inordinate delay in the restoration of funds, the PHA is facing a financial crisis due to which its staff, including fields members working in parks, are the hard hit and sometimes they have to wait for their salaries for days.

In this situation, the PHA has to made alternative arrangements to generate funds to pay salaries to the staff. Even the parks and greenbelts cannot be maintained properly.

PHA Bahawalpur Director General Rubina Iqbal Abbasi told Dawn that she was in touch with the concerned government department and officials for the restoration of the same. She hoped that the Punjab government would soon restore these funds.

She said after the restoration of funds, the PHA would go ahead to implement its pending projects making the city green and clean.

cotton valley: A plan is underway to transform Bahawalpur into a “cotton valley”, Punjab Agriculture Secretary Iftikhar Ali Sahoo said in Multan on Sunday.

Presiding over a conference on ‘Challenges Confronting Cotton Crop and Measures to Tackle Them’ at Muhammad Nawaz Sharif Agriculture University (MNSU), Multan, the Punjab agriculture secretary said that under the leadership of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, revolutionary measures are being implemented for agricultural progress in the province.

To achieve this purpose, he said, agricultural produce is being promoted on the basis of modern scientific lines and research. He listed challenges such as weather conditions, the unavailability of modern technology, and cultivators’ problems, adding that the government is striving hard to overcome such challenges.

He said that to safeguard the interests of cotton growers, their insurance programme is also being examined. University VC Prof Dr Ishtiaq Rijwana assured that the university would extend all possible cooperation to the agriculture department to restore cotton production.

KILLED: Three people, including a woman, were killed in separate incidents in Bahawalpur on Monday.

In one incident, Bilal slit the neck of his wife Ishrat Jabeen, a mother of six, in the village Pull Baghochi 29/BC in the limits of Baghdadul Jadid police.

The suspect and the deceased wife had an altercation over the purchase of clothes for a wedding when Bilal attacked her with a sharp-edged weapon.

After slitting her neck, he fled. Police shifted the body to the hospital for a postmortem examination, and registered a murder case against the fleeing man.

In another incident, Umar was electrocuted when the fodder-cutting machine on which he was working ran an electric current.

Separately, Allah Nawaz (37) was killed when his clothes accidentally got entangled in a sugarcane crushing machine in the fields at village 17/DNB.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2024