Page 206 - Muzaffargarh Gazzetteer

crude partition. A room was therefore prepared for him to ensure that he sat
in a dignified environment and treated the visitors of the DC office in the same
manner.

The front lawn was redone, with plantation of quality grass as well as new
plants and trees.

The conference room was in shabby condition too. Its furniture was worn
out, and there was no uniformity either, e.g. it had chairs of different sizes
and shapes for the participants. Tiles meant for roofs had been fixed on walls,
probably to mask the underlying dampness. Microphone cables, as well as
those of multimedia, were spread all over the room. Bulbs and tube lights of
different types/voltage were being used to lit it up. Such was the condition
of the place where the Deputy Commissioner used to chair the meetings of
various stakeholders and met incoming delegations. The work was started
from scratch and a very decent conference room, equipped with necessary
furniture and other facilities, was eventually created. So on and so forth;
suffice to say that almost all aspects needed attention, which was duly given.
So much so that the State Flag, which was required to fly over the top of the
Deputy Commissioner office, was previously flying on one side of the back of
the office, and had to be relocated to the required place. Similarly, an old and
worn-out board outside the main gate read the Deputy Commissioner Office.
It was therefore replaced with a bigger and newer board properly displaying
the name of the Deputy Commissioner office and its various sub-offices.

The District Administration then moved on to issue detailed SOPs for public
dealing; Allama Iqbal’s following verse was adopted as the guiding
principle/slogan in this regard:

مرن حرط یک مشیرب وت ںارای ہقلح وھ

Those SOPs were prominently displayed in offices as well as waiting areas of
the officers of the District Administration so as to acquaint the visitors with
their rights, and to let them know that what they should expect in those
offices. It was further contemplated that the display of SOPs in their offices
would act as a kind of check on the concerned officers, and enable the visitors
to question them in case of any deviation. Even otherwise too, all officers
were instructed to strictly follow those SOPs in letter and spirit. Furthermore,
all field officers were instructed to ensure their availability in offices at least
for couple of hours daily at predetermined/declared timings to save general
public from inconvenience.

Once the house was in order, we moved on to address bigger challenges.

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