The Punjab government has removed the managing directors of the waste management companies in Faisalabad, Kasur and Okara, tying the dismissals directly to poor sanitation performance under the province-wide Suthra Punjab programme.

Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif announced the decision at a review meeting on sanitation arrangements and programme performance. The removed MDs will not be reassigned to other postings — a bar the government framed as an accountability measure rather than a routine reshuffle. The chief minister expressed displeasure over sanitation complaints in several cities and ordered action against officials with weak performance records.

The shake-up reaches into field operations. The meeting approved measures to strengthen monitoring of Suthra Punjab field monitoring officers, or FMOs, who oversee sanitation staff in designated areas. Body cameras will be installed to track the officers. Deputy commissioners must arrange daily monitoring of FMO activity, and the chief minister ordered a dedicated monitoring section established to oversee FMO performance across the province.

The enforcement numbers behind the dismissals point to a programme under strain. Anti-littering squads activated in all divisions of Punjab have conducted 77,137 inspections and issued 9,353 warnings. Only 19 challans — penalty notices — have been issued for littering so far. In Lahore alone, the squad has carried out 53,186 inspections.

Enforcement is now shifting to cameras. The anti-littering campaign has expanded to include digital challans issued through Safe City system cameras, with at least 2,156 digital challans issued to date via the camera network. That channel now outpaces on-the-ground penalties by more than a hundred to one, a gap that suggests enforcement capacity sits with the surveillance infrastructure rather than the field squads.

Sharif set a 15-day target for improving door-to-door waste collection and ordered that the Suthra Punjab beat system be made fully operational across the province. The beat system assigns field monitoring to designated areas so sanitation staff and services are checked regularly — a structure the province has announced but, by the chief minister's own directive, not yet fully running.

On infrastructure, the briefing reported 37,852 bins installed across Punjab at designated waste disposal locations. Payments to Suthra Punjab workers have been completed on time in most tehsils, according to the briefing, though no figure was given for tehsils where payments lagged.

The complaint volume indicates the scale of operational friction. The programme has received 676,551 sanitation-related complaints across Punjab, of which 99 per cent have been resolved, the meeting was told. That resolution rate, if sustained, will be tested as the beat system and camera-based enforcement scale up.

Sharif directed relevant authorities to improve monitoring of sanitation operations, ensure accountability of field officers and deliver better waste management services to citizens.

What happens next turns on the 15-day deadline. If door-to-door collection does not measurably improve and the beat system is not fully operational by then, further personnel action at the waste management companies — and the deputy commissioners now responsible for daily FMO monitoring — is the likely follow-on.