Residents demands to activate PTC, ensure presence of teachers

Ghulam Mursalin Marwat

LAKKI MARWAT: Local residents have asked the district administration to activate Parent Teacher councils (PTC) and ensure presence of teachers in schools and doctors at public sector hospitals.

They raised these issues at Kul-e-Kachery (open session) held in town hall building in Lakki city the other day. The district administration had organized the public session on the special directives of chief secretary to ensure on spot solution of people’s problems.

Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Bakhtiar Khan and heads of line departments were also present. A large number of women also participated in the open public session.

Residents from urban and rural localities highlighted their problems with the hope to get prompt solution. “The inhabitants of rural areas are confronted with the problem of shortage of drinking water as tube wells are out of order”, said a resident.

He said that instead of false promises, practical steps were required to get the broken tube wells repaired to solve the water scarcity problem.

Another resident said that there was the dire need to activate parent teacher councils in government run schools to ensure transparent utilization of funds.

“The active PTCs will be helpful to ensure presence of teachers and improve learning environment at the schools”, he maintained, asking the authorities concerned to overcome shortage of teachers in government run schools especially female educational institutions.

Local residents also complained that doctors remained absent from duty when they visited hospitals to get their ailing relatives examined by them. They said that people witnessed improvement in health and education sectors but provincial government and district administration had to do more to achieve desired results.

They asked the government to take notice of pollution caused by a cement factory located in Darra Pezu town of the district.

“The pollution caused by cement producing industrial unit is the main reason for prevalence of diseases in the area”, they maintained, saying that residents of Pezu town and adjacent hamlets repeatedly raised the issue of different forums and also approached higher quarters concerned but to no avail.

They demanded of the tehsil municipal administration to repair faulty tube wells in urban locality to ensure provision of water to households and keep Lakki city clean on regular basis.

The deputy commissioner issued on spot orders to resolve issues raised by people. He directed the heads of departments to submit progress within 24 hours. He also directed PHED and TMA authorities to repair broken tube wells without any delay.

Mr Bakhtiar said that teachers and doctors’ attendance in schools and hospitals respectively had been improved in recent years with the help of effective monitoring system.

He warned that government employees absenting from duty would face stern departmental action. “Absenting from duty by teachers and doctors is intolerable and there is no leniency for them”, he made clear.

He called upon the people to keep an eye on uplift works in their respective localities and report use of substandard material and misuse of developmental funds.

“People can lodge their complaints about any genuine issue on telephone and through citizen portal; text messages (SMS) and social networking sites”, he maintained, adding that the district administration has a proper mechanism to forward such complaints to quarters concerned with directions to solve the issue within specified time.