“Aisay dastoor ko, subh-e-bey-noor ko mayn nahee maanta”
Revolutionary Shahbaz Sharif
“Aisay dastoor ko, subh-e-bey-noor ko mayn nahee maanta” – Shahbaz Sharif in his revolutionary speech in early 2009
This verse is from Habib Jalib’s poem, Jamhooriat. Shahbaz Sharif had taken it to the next level by singing it in a public gathering. The revolutionary in Shahbaz Sharif would care to respond on the 142 vehicles being used by CM Secretariat?
142 vehicles for the CM, 7 for crisis management
LAHORE: A recent poll reveals that bureaucracy, ministers, advisors and task forces in Punjab are using a total of 6,000 vehicles.
According to a transport poll of the services and general administration department, the agriculture department is using 829 vehicles. The irrigation department is using 747 vehicles, while housing and physical planning is using 490. Chief minister secretariat is using 142 vehicles and the chief minister’s inspection team has 14 vehicles in use. Relief and crisis management is using the least number of vehicles, standing at seven.
The Punjab government has to spend two billion rupees annually on the maintenance of these vehicles.
Here is the thing. These “official vehicles” are basically patronage rewards and most of these bureaucrats don’t do a “do Takkay’s” worth of official business on these vehicles (all of these are Jeeps, rovers or other expensive 4 wheel drive truck-bed type vehicles). Un-imaginable luxury for the thieving and incompetent bureaucracy of a country only few spots above somalia in terms of world standing, all courtesy of the horrifically poor urban peasants and urban surfs of the “new pakistan” who hardly ever make more than 300 rupees a day.
This disgusting practice needs to stop. If india’s prime-minister can haul-a55 in a sheety “ambassador” car for years on end, then there is no reason our incompetent bureaucrats can’t travel in a mehran or worse. Let them feel the the pain the public feels every single day.
Can anyone guess what the 490 vehicles of “housing and physical planning” dept are doing? yes. Afsaron ki begmat ki khareedari aur unkay bachay Dho rahi hen. Punjab’s streets are drowning in untreated sewage water, and none of these 490 vehicles can be seen any where doing anything remotely connected to the purpose they were bought for.
And finally, please explain the breakdown of the CM Secretariat’s vehicle usage, and since LUBP has been accused of being “an organ of PPP”, for a comparison, can you please post some numbers on how the Federal govt. is perhaps doing a slightly better job of it than the PML-N …