Friday, July 24, 2015

Metros And Danish Schools


Metros and Daanish schools are the pet projects of Punjab Chief Minister and billions of rupees have been spent on them. Two recent news reports are showing another picture of these projects.
The title of first report is “Daanish school building crumbles within a year of opening”. According to the report within a year of its inauguration by Punjab Chief Minister in 2013, the building started crumbling, with major cracks in walls and beams and leaking pipes and roofs – forcing management to close down its two dining halls.
A report by the Chief Minister Inspection Team, which investigated the faults and causes says: “The errors (cracks) that have appeared in these buildings are of serious and unique nature and cannot be rectified with confidence. Precious lives are at stake, which cannot be left to chance”. Thus partial closure of the residential school has been ordered by the Daanish Schools Authority.
The report has also raised serious concerns about soil survey, building and structural design, material used in the buildings and non-supervision of the work, terming all these factors major causes of the start of collapse of the building that had cost the nation Rs698m within a year.
According to another report after recent rains the underground metro bus stations of Rawalpindi/ Islamabad Metro at 6th Road and I.J. Principal Road were inundated with rain water and created problems for passengers as escalators went out of order. Rain also exposed the poor drainage system on elevated roads.
At the Committee Chowk to Warris Khan Section of the metro bus, the contractor was still installing drainage pipes and work is still going on in the Liaquat Bagh Section.
The above reports show the manner in which projects are conceived and implemented in Punjab.  We remember what earlier happened to Sassty Roti project. Is there any authority in Pakistan that can take notice of robbing tax payers of their money on extravagant and badly conceived projects and stop the plundering of county’s resources.

Tasneem Hameed

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