Dark capital

Since the last two months I have been trying my level best to get just two streetlights repaired near my home in F-7/2, Islamabad, but in vain. Reportedly, the CDA does not even have any spare bulbs in its stock for replacement. It seems CDA higher-ups are least bothered about this situation or the large number of faulty and non-functional streetlights in the gloomy capital. On the other hand, the metro-bus route and its stations keep glittering the whole night without any glitch.

I am left with no other option but to appeal to the PM to release some spare funds from the Rs50 billion Pindi-Islamabad Metro Bus Project, the Rs160 billion Lahore Orange Line Train Project or the $46 billion CPEC project to provide some spare bulbs to the CDA to get the out-of-order streetlights fixed again and prevent the capital from being transformed into a village every night. It is pathetic that even in the so-called posh sectors of Islamabad, the CDA does not have any funds just to paint lane markings on roads, remove graffiti from traffic signboards, fill pot-holes on roads, repair footpaths or replace the bulbs of streetlights. Is this an example of the ‘unprecedented development’ the PM is so fond of quoting all the time?

Fuad Enver

Islamabad