Lahore: The Lahore Waste Management Corporation’s (LWMC) Board of Directors (BoD) unanimously passed a resolution to elevate the corporation as an ‘authority’, news sources reported on September 23.
To this effect, the board of directors will submit a proposal of the conversion request to the provincial government. Following the status change, the LWMC will be known as the Lahore Waste Management Authority (LWMA), and its objectives and power will be expanded. Furthermore, the LWMA will be an autonomous state-owned institution with the power to develop and implement by-laws, rules, and regulations, levy sanitation taxes, impose major and minor fines and deal with sanitation concerns more effectively. Moreover, LWMA will be allowed to recruit and dismiss employees, set wages, provide budgets for machinery and equipment, generate cash through new sewage-related fees, and would be free of the effective supervision of the Municipal Corporation of Lahore (MCL).
It is vital to note that authority has the capacity to create its own legislation, but a corporation or enterprise operating under the government is reliant on the primary body for day-to-day operations. There are now several authorities, and the government has denotified many corporations in order to improve transparency and save government spending. The draft resolution for the LWMA was approved in 2021, but the BoD did not pursue it further. However, the present administration has opted to undertake infrastructural adjustments in order to persuade the provincial cabinet to provide the authority required powers under statute.
Nauman Ahmad is an imaginative Pisces whose love for literature and nature is unparalleled. When he's not reading or hiking, he's sleeping and eating, which gives him plenty of energy for his next adventure.
