LAHORE – Punjab Minister for Zakat and Usher Malik Nadeem Kamran on Sunday directed Town Municipal Officers (TMOs) of the province, not to allow sewer men enter into manholes without safety equipment.
He stated this while speaking to a ceremony in which 42 safety equipments were awarded to 27 Town Municipal Administrations (TMAs) at the Punjab Municipal Development Fund Company (PMDFC). He stressed the need for implementation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in this regard.
Malik Nadeem warned that the strict action would be taken against TMOs failing to implement the SOPs. He mentioned that the Punjab chief minister had taken strict notice of deaths of sewer men and ordered to provide complete kits of safety equipment to the TMAs.
The minister said that each kit worth Rs 2.089 million has 14 instruments, asserting that 42 kits were of worth Rs 87.771 million, being provided to 27 TMAs of the Punjab. He said that the Punjab government had also made training arrangements for sewer men regarding use of safety tools and experts would spend a day in each TMA office to train the sewer men.
“For the first time in history, steps had been taken for life safety of sewer men by providing them safety instruments,” he said, elaborating that these instrument were given to those TMAs which could not purchase these, while other TMAs already had the same.
He asked the TMOs to invite the members of provincial assembly (MPA) in the training session. MPA Tariq Mehmood Bajwa, Additional Secretary (local governments) Rashid Ahmad Khan, PMDFC Managing Director Amir Nazir and General Manager (Engineering) Iftikhar Rasool, Technical Consultant Ashiq Chaudhary and the Punjab TMOs were also present.
