HARIPUR: The striking sanitation workers of the Ghazi tehsil municipal administration on Tuesday resumed duty after the authorities promised the early resolution of their issues.

The workers had stopped collecting waste from the TMA areas on Monday to protest ‘discrimination’ by the administration.

Younas Maseeh, a leader of sanitation workers, said the TMA had over 20 sanitation workers on its pay role for several months but only eight workers were given the garbage collection task, while the others worked in other offices of the TMA and administrative offices.

He insisted that those workers were supposed to clean the houses of all TMA and administration officers, so a good quantity of solid waste remained uncollected in urban areas.

TMO promises early resolution of issues

Younas said the workers had repeatedly asked the relevant TMA and administration officers to bring back the sanitation workers doing different office work while drawing salary under the sanitation head, but to no avail.

He said the sanitation workers had called off the strike conditionally as the TMO promised the resolution of issues within four days.

EDUCATION: Minister for elementary education Akbar Ayub Khan on Tuesday said if the children in villages and remote areas didn’t get modern facilities of formal education, the dream of real development would remain elusive.

Addressing a public meeting in Bandi Labliyal village here, the minister said the government was utilising all available resources to provide basic facilities, especially educational ones, to the children in remote areas, which were neglected in the past.

He announced Rs100 million for Haljudal-Badhoragali Road, Rs100 million for Japan Bridge-Haljudal Road, establishment of a girls high school for the area, and 50 water bores for villages hit by water shortage.

CHILD ABUSERS AT LARGE: The Khanpur police have failed to arrest the abusers of a boy.

A schoolteacher from Tofkiyan village complained that two people sexually abused his 12-year-old son at gunpoint in the local orchards on Feb 9.

The initial medical examination of the child confirmed abuse. However, the detailed report is awaited from the Forensic Sciences Laboratory, Peshawar.

The police booked the two suspects under Section 377 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2020