25 November 2025 \u2014 Residents across Rawalpindi report mounting garbage mounds and foul odour turning inner\u2011city streets into health hazards, with hotspots identified near the Leprosy Hospital on Zafarul Haq Road and in Amarpura, Nayi Abadi, Chah Sultan, Dhok Khaba, Arya Mohalla and Millat Colony. Locals say open heaps of waste have become routine, attracting mosquitoes and flies and raising fears of disease.<\/p>\n
Zaheer Ahmad Awan<\/strong>, chairman of the Citizen Action Committee, publicly identified a major refuse pile beside the Leprosy Hospital and criticised the Rawalpindi Waste Management Company for what he called criminal negligence. He said the RWMC managing director and senior officers have been largely absent from the field, working from home while only sanitary workers handle frontline complaints.<\/p>\n Awan said the RWMC complaints centre often hosts only sanitary workers with no chief sanitary inspector, inspector, assistant operation manager or senior operations staff present, and that staff on the ground are repeatedly ignored despite numerous complaints. He pointed to a contradiction between the agency\u2019s substantial budget and its visible lack of service delivery.<\/p>\n At municipal workshops, rows of broken collection vehicles stand idle and the trucks that do collect garbage are frequently in dilapidated condition, emitting heavy smoke and breaking down. Many vehicles must be towed to workshops for repairs, Awan added, undermining waste collection schedules and worsening the Rawalpindi sanitation emergency.<\/p>\n Drains and lanes in inner localities remain clogged with waste, creating persistent foul smells and breeding grounds for pests. In response, the Citizen Action Committee announced a citywide protest campaign and will set up protest camps in each union council to press for immediate action and to mobilise residents for neighbourhood cleanups.<\/p>\n The committee is demanding that the Chief Minister of Punjab immediately suspend the RWMC managing director and other allegedly incompetent officers and appoint honest, duty\u2011bound officials who can restore regular waste collection and eliminate the public health risks posed by the current Rawalpindi sanitation breakdown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Citizens launch protests over Rawalpindi sanitation failures as RWMC officers abscond and garbage piles spread disease; demand suspensions and urgent cleanup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":14637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}