Two-Day Food Gala Held at Lahore’s Jilani Park for World Food Day, With Over 60 Sanitation Workers Keeping the Park Clean

LAHORE: The lawns of Jilani Park filled up for a two-day food gala (the Jilani Park food gala) held to mark World Food Day, and for once the clean-up operation was almost as organised as the food. The Suthra Punjab Agency Lahore put more than 60 sanitation workers on duty for the celebrations, determined that families would leave behind memories, not litter.

Three shifts, ten officers and bins where people actually eat

Ten zonal officers from the agency monitored the arrangements in three shifts, and more than 20 wheelie bins were placed around the park so waste had somewhere to go. On the directions of agency chief Sheryar Arif Khan, the teams stayed on duty before the gala opened, while it ran and after the crowds went home. Entry and exit routes and the roads adjoining the park got special attention too — usually the first places to show the strain on a busy festival day.

An awareness camp alongside the stalls

The agency also set up a cleanliness awareness camp inside the park, where its Social Mobilizer Wing spoke to visitors about keeping public places clean. Khan said providing citizens with a clean and healthy environment during events and festivals remained the agency’s top priority. Jilani Park, the city’s old Race Course Park, draws some of Lahore’s biggest festival crowds, which makes it the hardest — and most visible — test of that promise.