LAHORE: Minister for Local Government Zeeshan Rafique chaired the fifth meeting of the Suthra Punjab Authority on Saturday, reviewing the body’s administrative and financial affairs as the province’s sanitation programme moves further into its restructured phase.
Secretary Local Government Zaid Bin Maqsood, Director General Suthra Punjab Authority Umar Javed and technical members Ch Jaffar Iqbal, Ali Tariq, Saira Iftikhar and Muzaffar Islam attended the meeting, while divisional commissioners joined via video link, according to an official statement.
The minister said the authority model had replaced the previous company model from July 2026 — a structural change that shifts sanitation service delivery from separately incorporated waste management companies to a single provincial authority.
“The monitoring system is being further strengthened through the establishment of agencies in every district,” he said, indicating that district-level agencies will carry out the operational role previously performed by the companies.
Zeeshan Rafique described Suthra Punjab as the flagship project of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz and said it had transformed the province’s sanitation system. “Due to the Chief Minister’s vision and political will, an integrated sanitation network has now been established across the province,” he said.
Sanitation services had previously been limited to urban areas, the minister said, with no proper waste management system in most villages. “Garbage had been accumulating in villages for years,” he added — a reference to the long-standing gap between municipal coverage in cities and its near absence at union council level.
A digital monitoring system has been established to track 180,000 sanitation workers and 40,000 vehicles, the minister said, giving the authority a real-time view of attendance and route coverage that was not available under the earlier arrangement.
He stressed, however, that no system could deliver optimum results without active public participation. “To enhance citizens’ participation in Suthra Punjab, the public awareness campaign needs to be made more effective,” he said.
Waste collected under the programme is being put to productive use, the minister said. “The second phase of Waste to Value has been launched, and a clear direction has been set,” he told the meeting.
Waste-to-value processing — converting collected municipal waste into compost, fuel or recyclable feedstock — is the element of the programme that determines whether collection gains translate into disposal gains, rather than simply relocating waste to landfill sites.
The minister said the initiative was being appreciated at national and international levels, telling the meeting that Forbes, BBC, Bloomberg and major Chinese and Japanese media organisations had praised the programme. “Wherever you go in the province, you can see the footprint of Suthra Punjab,” he said.
The review meeting comes days after Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif publicly confirmed that corruption had been detected within the Suthra Punjab programme and that those involved had been suspended — a reminder that the scale of the sanitation network, spanning tens of thousands of vehicles and payroll entries, carries a corresponding audit burden.
The minister reiterated the government’s commitment to learning from challenges and further improving service delivery.
Worker, fleet and international coverage claims in this report are as stated by the Minister for Local Government. The Lahore Times has sought independent confirmation of the media citations and of the district-level agency rollout timeline.
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