BAHAWALPUR: Various police stations in the district registered 18 cases within a fortnight against the owners of the brick kilns on the charge of using substandard fuel in their kilns. During the same period, over 82 smoke-emitting vehicles were issued tickets and a fine of about Rs50,000 was imposed on them.

This was told by the officials in the meeting of the district smog committee chaired by Deputy Commissioner Irfan Ali Kathia on Saturday.

The DC directed the officials of the environment department to monitor brick kilns daily to ensure that they were not causing pollution that could result in smog. He asked the anti-smog committee to check the violators.

The DC said that as most of the brick kilns had been converted to the zigzag technology, there should be no use of substandard fuel.

He issued orders for strict action against the farmers who, despite clear instructions by the government, were indulging in setting the stubble of crops on fire in fields.He asked the of ficials of the agriculture department to inspect the rural areas frequently and penalise the farmers found setting the stubble on fire.

The officials of the environment department informed the meeting the kilns with zigzag technology were now functionalacross the district.

SALARY ISSUE: Four hundred work-charged employees of the Construction and Works (C&W) Department have not been getting their salaries for the last four months.

According to the affected employees, their salary bills were not sanctioned by the C&W chief engineer for south Punjab. They said that as the chief engineer had the office in Lahore instead of Bahawalpur and their salary bills were getting delayed.

They demanded the chief engineer`s office be shifted to the south Punjab so that their pending salary bills might be cleared on time regularly in the future in addition to the approval of other welfare projects pertaining to the area. Correspondent