SIALKOT-Sialkot junction railway station presents a gloomy picture of official neglect with poor sanitary condition and the state of dilapidation of its buildings.
Pakistan Railways’ Rest House and Daak Bungalow, adjacent to Sialkot railway station, are in very miserable condition. These buildings are crumbling due to prolonged non-maintenance and repairing. These are called the house of genie by the local inhabitants as the walls, boundary walls and roofs are dilapidated from all the sides.
The pathways between the rest house and Daak Bungalow are littered with the four to five feet high self grown bushes having several dangerous insects including snakes hidden in these bushes.
The residential quarters once meant for the Pakistan railways employees, Station Master House, Doctor House and railway Go-downs are also in very miserable condition. The ill-smell oozes out from the nearby Nullah, creating the large-scale environmental pollution, making it very hard for the inhabitants of the Railway Colony to live there.
On the other side, the local people have converted the Sialkot-Pasrur-Narowal and Sialkot-Sambrial-Wazirabad railway track into filth depots by continuously dumping the trash and garbage along both hte sides of the railway track. The practice is still continued by the local people due to negligence of the Sialkot Waste Management Company.
The local employees of Pakistan Railways (PR) are also facing great hardships in purchasing the daily-use commodities after the closure of Railways Welfare Shop several years ago. The compound of the Sialkot railway station has already been converted into a parking stand by the local PR officials.
HOSPITALS TO GET RS140M FOR MEDICINES
The government has released a special grant of Rs140 million for the provision of medicines in all the government hospitals, basic health units (BHUs), rural health centres (RHCs) across the Sialkot district.
A meeting of the Health Department was held with the participation of Deputy Commissioner Asif Tufail, CEO District Health Authority Dr Javaid Warraich and other officials.
The DC said that the government has made effective measures to ensure early provision of the medicines and health facilities at Govt Allama Iqbal Memorial Teaching Hospital Sialkot and Govt. Sardar Begum Memorial Teaching Hospital Sialkot, four THQ hospitals, six rural health centres (RHCs) and 88 basic health units (BHUs) in Sialkot district.
Dr Javaid Warraich said that 1,773,459 outdoor patients, 235,530 indoor patients during 2016 while 11,630 gynea cases were carried out including 8,642 normal deliveries. He said that 22,283 operations were performed including 8,452 major operations at these government hospitals in 2016. He said that 3,984 people died while the doctors conducted 161 initial post-mortems while 05 dead bodies were re-examined. He said that the doctors issued total 8,105 medico-legal certificates, handled 3,903 medical emergencies and 15,332 patients of the accidents were brought there.