LAHORE: As the Lahorites are facing cleanliness issues since the end of contract of Turkish firms, the Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) plans to charge them a sanitation fee besides initiating other means of revenue generation in a bid to devise a sustainable model for effective solid waste management.

The company has also been asked to prepare a proposal in this regard and submit it to a high level committee of various civic agencies and departments within the next 15 days, Dawn has learnt.

“A high level committee having representation of the LWMC, Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa), Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA), Municipal Corporation Lahore (MCL), Urban Unit, Lahore Development Authority (LDA), Environment Protection Agency (EPA), Local Government and Community Development and Finance departments, city district administration and others has been constituted on the orders of the CM.

This committee has been assigned with the task to work out a viable plan to run the company and resolve the cleanliness-related issues the Lahorites have been facing, especially after the end of the contract with the Turkish contractors,” an official source told Dawn.

He said that during a detailed discussion in a meeting of the committee on Friday, the LWMC, on query by the participants about its sustainability, gave a presentation, stating that cleanliness/sanitation fee, segregation of waste and its recycling and disposal to the interested parties were the key revenue generation strategies that could be adopted.

“At this, the participants unanimously asked the company chief executive officer to submit a plan to make the company sustainable and efficient to deal with the solid waste management-related issues,” the official, who was also present in the meeting, said.

He added that the LWMC, if it went for imposing the sanitation fee, was likely to use the model of the excise department that receives property tax from the people having residential property measuring over five marla.

Meanwhile, the participants (heads of civic agencies and departments) in the meeting presided over by the LWMC chairman Malik Amjad Ali Noon, sought a long-term plan of solid waste management in a bid to make a sustainable way forward to deal with such issues permanently.

The participants gave suggestions on future plans of the company. Keeping in view the feedback and suggestions of the stakeholders, it was decided to make a new affordable and sustainable plan that must be presented in the next meeting.

To ensure the sustainability of the company, imposition of area-wise sanitation fees on the residents was also discussed. The participants asked the LWMC to also submit a plan to its board of directors.

“To save the money, a cost of long-term plan would be made in rupees instead of dollars,” said LWMC CEO Imran Ali Sultan while speaking on the occasion. “Waste would be taken as a source of income/revenue,” he added.

On the other hand, the city’s timely waste collection and disposal couldn’t be streamlined to date, leaving the people with no option but to suffer.

“It has almost become a routine that the waste heaps are not lifted in our area timely,” said a resident of Johar Town.

RAVI: The land acquisition collector of the Ravi Urban Development Authority (RUDA) has invited the public at large to submit objections in writing on Feb 8 to the land acquisition of various chunks of land for the Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project, according to a public notice.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2021