Forbes has praised the Punjab government’s ‘Suthra Punjab’ initiative, highlighting the efforts of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif and her team.
In a report authored by best-selling writer Paul Klein, Forbes described how the Punjab government transformed the province’s biggest sanitation challenge into an effective and sustainable system within a short period.
The report noted that establishing a sanitation system for 130 million people in just eight months is a remarkable achievement.
Introduced across the province within eight months, the system now serves nearly 130 million people and manages around 50,000 tonnes of waste daily.
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In a statement issued on Monday, Azma Bokhari said the ‘Suthra Punjab Programme’, Maryam Nawaz’s flagship cleanliness initiative, has managed to attract international recognition in just a few months. She said the chief minister is “cleaning the entire Punjab the way one keeps their own home clean.”
The information minister added that Forbes has noted Maryam Nawaz’s efforts in resolving what she described as a 75-year-old issue of inconsistent sanitation across the province. According to the minister, the magazine highlighted that the programme has significantly reduced disparities between urban and rural areas by ensuring uniform cleanliness standards.
Bokhari said that previously, sanitation services were mostly limited to upscale neighbourhoods of major cities, while rural regions remained neglected. “Now, the cleanliness standards in villages match those seen in urban localities,” she remarked.
She further stated that Forbes acknowledged that countries around the world are looking to learn from the Suthra Punjab model, praising Maryam Nawaz’s administrative approach and governance style.
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Built around the Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC), the initiative integrates urban centres and remote areas under a unified structure that relies heavily on digital monitoring. Routes, garbage trucks, and bins are tracked in real time, while contractor payments are linked to performance data to prevent misuse and ensure accountability. LWMC officials say political backing, strict oversight, and tech-based operations have been central to the project’s success.
Punjab is also moving ahead with waste-to-energy projects, including a 25MW plant planned for Lahore, and expects its waste-to-value initiatives to cut nearly two million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions annually.
The programme has created over 100,000 green jobs and significantly reduced illegal dumping and clogged drainage networks. Suthra Punjab was recently presented at COP30 in Brazil, attracting interest from cities such as Jakarta and Nairobi.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif praised the effort, crediting Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz and her team for improving service delivery. The next phase will expand recycling, composting, and energy production to further reduce landfill burden and generate economic activity.
