LAHORE: Punjab’s Housing Department has put officers and contractors on notice to complete Punjab Development Program works on time and to standard, or face departmental action. Every ongoing project must be completed before the next monsoon.
The warning came from Secretary Housing Punjab Noor-ul-Amin Mengal at what an official statement described as an important meeting held on the directions of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif. According to the statement, issued in Lahore on Thursday, he directed all concerned officers and contractors to accelerate development works and ensure their timely, quality completion.
Mengal made it clear that officers and contractors delivering timely, quality work would be appreciated. Departmental action, he said, would be taken against those responsible for incomplete or substandard work.
At the centre of the push is what the department calls the Smart Execution Plan, which the secretary said must be implemented in letter and spirit. Under the plan, development works have been divided into three packages, and each package is to be completed within three months.
“No project would be left incomplete,” Mengal said, according to the statement, adding that completing every package within the stipulated three-month period would be mandatory. He also directed that all works be completed according to approved standards and within the specified timelines.
The statement did not say whether the three packages will run one after another or at the same time, how many schemes each package contains, or what they will cost.
The secretary’s most concrete deadline was seasonal: all ongoing works should be completed before the next monsoon season. The timing reflects hard experience.
This year’s monsoon exposed serious gaps in urban drainage. Half-finished works such as open trenches, dug-up roads and incomplete drains tend to turn into hazards once the rains arrive.
The Punjab Development Program has been used to fund urban water, drainage and civic works across the province. Earlier this year, officials reported 83 roadside water tanks completed in 51 cities, a figure that later rose to 96 drains and 94 water tanks in 51 Punjab cities.
Mengal has chaired a series of review meetings on the department’s projects this year. Earlier this month, he directed authorities to press ahead with installing more than 150,000 smart water meters in Lahore, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi.
The threat of departmental action comes as the Housing Department’s own agencies face closer examination. The provincial government recently ordered a special audit of PHATA over alleged corruption and merit violations. That makes the secretary’s promise of consequences for substandard work one that contractors and officers will be watching closely.
For residents living alongside unfinished works, the pre-monsoon deadline gives a clear benchmark against which to judge the department.
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