Peshawar remained an important center on trade routes between India and Central Asia. The Peshawar region was a cosmopolitan region in which goods, peoples, and ideas would pass along trade routes. Here, I will discuss here that How Peshawar can once again become a City of Flowers.
Peshawar is the capital of the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and its largest city. It is the sixth-largest city in Pakistan and the largest Pashtun-majority city in the country. The word “Peshawar” means a city of flowers that’s why it is called a city of flowers. But due to the prevailing situation in the city, it is no longer a city of flowers.
How Peshawar can be a City of Flowers again?
In today’s situation, when there is less work and more advertising campaigns on social media, even in this era, an institution and an officer of Peshawar have performed more than their responsibilities, but they have not been publicized in the way that a There is always talks of a management raid on a hotel or the beauty of a market.
After seeing the cleanliness situation in Peshawar in the past few days, the heartless heart appreciated the hard work of WSSP officials and personnel. There is no doubt that the sanitation system in the city is improving since the WSSP came into existence.
In order to improve the sanitation, water, and drainage problems of the citizens, the government of Pervez Khattak established a company called WSSP and put a qualified engineer late Jahanzeb Khan in charge of it. By uniting the scattered employees and machines to create some new priorities for water supply and sanitation in the city, we then saw the WSSP personnel appearing in a distinctive jackets.
The sanitation workers who were missing for months started showing up at their respective workplaces. Gradually this new entity gained complete control. Although Jahanzeb Khan is no longer with us, the saplings planted by him set a new example of his expertise and dedication to work on Eid-ul-Azha this year.
In a single day, all the furniture was removed from the city. Major roads were lit up even on Eid day except at certain places where WSSP had set up huge collection centers.
This time public support was also excellent. The hard work of the last few years paid off and there was a big change in the general attitude of the people. People helped the administration to clean their streets, neighborhoods, and roads after the sacrifice, if it can be said that the relationship of cooperation between the administration and the people should be seen for the first time but unfortunately this process of improvement No one noticed even though both the WSSP and the public deserved the praise. If there was some appreciation, other institutions would also know how to get good results by bringing people together.
It is also important to mention here that after the departure of Engineer Jahanzeb Khan, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf also intervened politically in WSSP, making Shaukat Ali of Peshawar the Chairman of the Board of Governors of this organization before the 2018 elections. He went and made a lot of recruitments due to which he benefited in the general elections as well. Even after becoming a member of the National Assembly, Shaukat Ali’s influence continued. Two people from my area who were close to Shaukat Ali got jobs in WSSP.
After losing the mayoral seat of Peshawar city in the municipal elections, PTI nominated its defeated candidate as the chairman of WSSP and replaced Shaukat Ali. Despite the political interference, this institution has done a good job, if this interference is also removed and the institution is freed from political influence, further improvement will take place.
Now coming to the officer mentioned in the beginning. This person is none other than Peshawar City Commissioner Riaz Mehsud. I saw him for the first time when he was the APA of Dara Adam Khel and appeared in the court of Justice Javed Nawaz Gandapur.
Although Riyaz Mehsud is close to PTI, his administrative skills cannot be denied. Whether it is the issue of illegal rickshaw loaders from the city or the beauty of the city, Riyadh is very sensitive about this issue. When he became the commissioner, heroin addicts were seen everywhere in the city fulfilling their addiction on the streets.
By persuading Chief Minister Mehmood Khan, Riaz launched a systematic campaign against these heroines for the first time in history. He started rounding up heroin addicts with the help of the police and established about eight centers for them in the city, shifted them there, and started regular treatment.
These drug addicts are being regularly monitored in these centers. The Commissioner personally visits each center once a week to learn about their health, food, and recreation issues. Within days, most of the heroin addicts have disappeared from the city.
Now they are busy getting rid of the addiction in these centers. A training system is also being established for these heroines and the services of IT experts are also being procured.
Now they plan to arrange jobs for them after they are discharged from rehabilitation centers so that they can become useful citizens. This work of rehabilitation of these Nishis should have started long ago in a systematic manner, perhaps you have not seen the gathering of these Nishis in front of Peshawar High Court and under Surrey Bridge, or perhaps no one has seen this scene. Elderly parents search these tracks in the morning, afternoon, or evening for their little ones, or when a mother with her young children descends these tracks in search of her drugged husband.
This is my daily route and every day there are similar scenes. Riyaz Mehsud has started a good work, now it is the responsibility of the government and the philanthropists to find small jobs for those who have recovered from addiction and put them to work so that they cannot go back to addiction. And in the same way, the government should support the people of Riyad Mehsud in taking measures against beggars, illegal rickshaw loaders, and bases to make this city beautiful.
Conclusion
Still, Riyaz Mehsud is preparing a program to install cameras in the city with the help of the district administration because the safe city project could not be started in both PTI institutions. Installing cameras will make the job of protecting the city and its citizens easier. If the initiatives taken by WSSP and Riyaz Mehsud are protected from political interference and both get government and public patronage, Peshawar can once again become a city of flowers.
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