MULTAN
Ten-day anti-measles vaccination drive will commence in Multan from September 5 and about 1.3 million children between the age of six months to 10 years will be vaccinated in the district.
Sources in the Health department revealed that the drive was being launched on a special directive of the chief minister Punjab and four mobile teams for each union councils were constituted to make the campaign successful. “The teams will bring kids to the basic health units or fix centres where they will be injected measles prevention vaccine,” sources added. The teams are scheduled to spend first six days in the field while rest if the four days are allocated for the vaccination of schoolchildren. Sources said that the district administration has directed health department to adopt all out measures to make the drive successful.
SOARING WHEAT PRICE: The price of wheat has touched the sky-high mark of Rs. 1350 per maund in open market because of Punjab Government’s ill-advised policy as the flour were not issued wheat quota by the government till filing of this report. The surge in wheat prices also caused hike in atta rate, further adding to the plight of the poor. A survey of market revealed that the owners of flour mills and small wheat grinding units charged their wanted prices of atta but no concerned department took any notice of overcharging. On the other hand, sources in food department claimed that a proposal for fixing wheat price at Rs1330 per maund had been sent to the government but the summary was not approved so far. The mills owners also demanded the government to fix the prices of wheat and issue quota to the mills with a view to ending prevailing crisis.
Meanwhile, the district education department has launched Emergency Enrolment Drive and a total of 17819 students have so far been enrolled at different schools of Multan. The drive is being supervised by the District Coordination Officer (DCO) Syed Gulzar Hussain Shah and it will continue till September 30. The education department has set the target of enrolling 55728 children and yet 38224 students are to be enrolled. Meanwhile, the DCO carried out surprise visits of different schools to inspect the progress in enrolment drive and directed the school teachers to convince parents in their respective areas to get their children enrolled at schools. He said that the only way to achieve the goal of 100 per cent enrolment was to reach out the parents and convince them. He directed the administrative heads of all schools to contact the parents of absent children and inform them about the absence of their kids.