RAWALPINDI, Nov 12, 2026: Pakistan Citizen Rights Movement Chairman Zaheer Ahmed Awan has raised concerns over the state of cleanliness in Rawalpindi and the administrative expenditure linked to the Suthra Punjab programme.<\/p>\n
He called upon Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz and the Punjab chief secretary to look into the matter and take measures for improving sanitation services in the city.<\/p>\n
Awan made the remarks while hearing public complaints at the Citizens Complaints Cell on Zafar ul Haq Road. He said that in 2013, the Municipal Corporation\u2019s waste management system was being run by an officer, Dr Mazhar, from one room of a government office, with 1,553 sanitary workers.<\/p>\n
He claimed that almost the same number of sanitary workers was now being supervised through a costlier administrative arrangement, which included a rented private building, official vehicles, several officers and other operational expenses.<\/p>\n
According to him, the monthly rent of the office runs into several million rupees. He questioned whether such expenditure could be justified when residents in various localities were still complaining about poor cleanliness and irregular waste collection.<\/p>\n
Awan urged the authorities to review the programme\u2019s budget, vehicle fleet, fuel use and maintenance costs to determine whether public funds were being spent efficiently.<\/p>\n
He said it was a matter of concern that government properties were at times leased out to private parties at comparatively low rents, while public institutions were paying heavy amounts for rented private offices.<\/p>\n
He proposed that the Suthra Punjab office be shifted to the vacant government TMA building at Liaquat Bagh, saying the step could cut rental costs and help save public money.<\/p>\n
Awan also called for an independent assessment of the educational qualifications, professional experience and recruitment records of officers and administrative staff. He said degrees, diplomas and relevant experience in environmental sciences and related fields should be checked to ensure that recruitment rules had been followed.<\/p>\n
He urged the authorities to hold a transparent recruitment audit and take lawful action if any irregularity or appointment against merit was proved.<\/p>\n
The PCRM chairman further suggested that officers should visit sanitation sites regularly and directly supervise cleanliness work instead of depending only on office reports.<\/p>\n
For better attendance and accountability, he proposed biometric eye scan attendance for officers and sanitary workers at 7am, 11am and 3pm. He said such a mechanism could help monitor attendance, field presence and performance.<\/p>\n
Awan also demanded a comprehensive financial and administrative audit covering vehicles, fuel, maintenance, office rent and other operational expenses.<\/p>\n
He appealed to the Punjab government to review the administrative structure of the sanitation programme and ensure that available resources were used for improving public services.<\/p>\n
He said citizens needed clean streets, properly maintained drains and regular waste collection, adding that taxpayers\u2019 money should primarily benefit the public through better sanitation and civic facilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zaheer Ahmed Awan has urged Punjab authorities to review Suthra Punjab expenses, office rent, recruitment records and sanitation services in Rawalpindi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":22116,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22117","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\/22117","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=22117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}