Visually-impaired protesters demand prompt action

LAHORE:

Around 50 visually impaired people staged a demonstration on Punjab Assembly premises and in front of it on Monday. They protested against, what they called the government’s failure to ensure provision of employment and regularisation of visually impaired adhoc government servants.

The protest began at around noon on The Mall and went on well into the evening. Punjab government spokesperson Zaeem Qadri announced an offer to negotiate with the protesters several times. However, five attempts to negotiate reached a deadlock after the protesters demanded immediate regularisation of services.

Of the 50 visually impaired protesters, 23 were adhoc government servants in the Special Education Department. One of the protestors, Mohammad Junaid, said despite the government’s promise to regularise their services in December last year, nothing had materialised. “The government promised a 3 per cent quota for the disabled back then, but even the 2 per cent quota has not been implemented so far.” He said 505 requests for employment had been sent to chief minister in December and despite the passage of three months, none of the government’s commitments regarding employment had been honoured. Qadri said the government had been cooperating with the protesters. He said their demands had been accepted and only the implementation part was left. He said the government would make good all its promises by March 31. He said a special committee headed by the additional chief secretary was formulating recommendations including regularising ad-hoc visually impaired government employees and increasing the quota for the disabled. Qadri also said that the ban on government jobs will not be applicable to the disabled and instructions in this regard would be issued to DCOs.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3^rd, 2015.