Free apartments allotted to 720 labourers

Workers with disabilities to be accommodated on ground floor

LAHORE:

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif inaugurated balloting for the allotment of 720 newly constructed apartments to homeless workers in the Sundar Industrial Estate.

She also telephoned several successful applicants to congratulate them.

The chief minister described the initiative as a reflection of a "motherly state," adding that 720 hardworking families were set to be settled in homes of their own, freeing them from the hardship of rent and the fear of eviction.

Widows and persons with disabilities will be allotted apartments without balloting.

The chief minister directed that special persons should be provided apartments on the ground floor to ensure ease and safety. She directed that successful allottees must be handed over possession of their apartments within seven days.

She directed that additional 1,872 apartments for industrial workers should be completed within the next 18 months.

She ordered that a bachelor hostel for 700 workers in the Quaid-e- Azam Business Park in Sheikhupura should be built within three months

Provincial Labour Minister Mian Manshaullah Butt and officials informed the chief minister that the Sundar Industrial Estate apartment project had been completed at a cost of Rs3.4 billion, with the cost of each apartment exceeding Rs3.6 million.

Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz called an industrial worker, Nadeem Tahir, to congratulate him, advising him to keep his parents with him to properly look after them.

Officials apprised her that 5,897 workers had been declared eligible for the Worker Welfare Complex at Sundar Industrial Estate Phase-I.

They added that of the allotted apartments, 480 had been reserved for industrial workers from Kasur and 240 from Lahore.

They said 672 apartments would be constructed in Sundar Phase-II, 656 in Multan and 544 in Warburton.