Locusts threat: Surveillance teams asked to be on their guard.

BAHAWALPUR -- The field teams of the government departments concerned were alerted in the 66 union councils (UCs) adjacent to the vast desert of Cholistan for effective monitoring and surveillance of any possible breeding or adults' movement of the locust swarms across Bahawalpur division.

The information was given at a video-link meeting held here on Thursday to review the latest situation. Divisional Commissioner Asif Iqbal Chaudhry chaired the meeting while deputy commissioners Shozeb Saeed (Bahawalpur), Shoaib Jadoon (Bahawalnagar) and Ali Shahzad (Rahim Yar Khan), Cholistan Development Authority Managing Director Rana Saleem Ahmed besides the heads of the departments of livestock, agriculture and others participated.

The meeting was informed that during the past weeks there was no evidence of the presence of locusts or their breeding in the area under surveillance. It included 21 union councils of Bahawalpur, 26 of Bahawalnagar and 19 of Rahim Yar Khan.

The commissioner claimed that during the anti-locust operations in the previous four months, more than 250,000 acres of land in Cholistan was sprayed to destroy...