650,000 workers registered with SESSI: labour minister

Govt aims to increase the registered workers to one million in coming fiscal year

KARACHI: Sindh Labour and Human Resources Minister Ghulam Murtaza Baloch has said that since March, almost 650,000 workers have been registered with Sindh Employees' Social Security Institute (SESSI). He added that they were aiming to increase the workers registered to one million in the next fiscal year.

Baloch expressed these views in a meeting convened to discuss the welfare of workers and their families in his office on Tuesday. Labour Secretary Rasheed Ahmed Solangi and other officers also attended the meeting. More than Rs200 million are being spent annually to provide welfare and medical facilities to the workers and their families, said Baloch, adding that they were taking more measures to provide relief to them.

While briefing the meeting, the labour secretary said that on the directives of Sindh government and in collaboration with the World Bank, SESSI had launched the Sindh Business Registration Portal.

Minister promises better facilities for labourers’ children

The purpose of this web portal is to provide on-line registration facility for national and international investors, industrialists and owners. Through this portal, they can register themselves in all relevant departments in one go.

Baloch said, "Under SESSI, Valika and Landhi hospitals, have been upgraded and ICU for newly born children have also been established in these hospitals". He added that a 25-bed hospital had almost been completed in Sukkur while a 25-bed hospital in Daharki was under construction. For the first time in the history of SESSI, 42 employees from grade one to grade 11 had been given offer letters on quota for the deceased, the minister said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2019.