SIALKOT
The Sialkot Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA) has no specific garbage dumping point due to which the sanitation staff has been facing great difficulties in disposing of rubbish collected from the city.TMA Administrator Tajjamal Abbas Rana told the newsmen that as many as 750 sweepers collect more than 242 tonnes of garbage on daily basis from the city and dump the huge quantity of garbage on private lands of people in villages Kaakeywali, Rohail Garha , Langriyaanwali and other surrounding areas through 125 vehicles.He said that having TMA’s own dumping point was the need of the hour and it was planning to establish its own dumping point by purchasing 16 acres of land at village Sadra Badra in outskirts of city as soon as possible, with a sole aim to purge the Sialkot’s urban areas from the environmental pollution by dumping the city garbage there. The Sialkot TMA has already completed its paper work to purchase the land for dumping point, he added.RACE FOR BY-POLL TICKET: As many as three local political big guns Mansha Ullah Butt (former special assistant to Punjab CM), Engineer Imran Ashraf (former MPA) and Aurang Zeb Shah (former deputy mayor of Sialkot) are in the race to get the PML-N ticket for contesting by-polls scheduled to be held on August 22, 2013 in constituency (PP 123, Sialkot-III).Federal Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Muhammad Asif was also elected as MPA from this constituency in May 11, 2013 general elections. He had vacated this seat by keeping his national assembly seat (NA 110, Sialkot-I).During the 2002 and 2008 general elections, the Sialkot based leading exporter-turned-politician Engineer Imran Ashraf has been elected as PML-N MPA from this constituency (PP 123, Sialkot-III). But, during 2011 general elections, he was not given a chance to contest as PML-N candidate due to his joining the PTI after his mounted political differences with PML-N stalwart Khawaja Muhammad Asif and his re-joining to PML-N after quitting the PTI after his one and half months long stay in PTI.Now, all the above mentioned candidates Mansha Ullah Butt, Engineer Imran Ashraf and Aurang Zeb Shah have applied for the PML-N ticket ahead of the coming by-polls.