Workers’ rights: Child labour at kilns will end in six months, says CM

Shahbaz says 7,000 flats will be built for labourers at the Workers’ Welfare Complex.

LAHORE:

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif announced on Friday that child labour at brick kilns would be abolished within six months.

The labour minister and the labour secretary should immediately devise a plan in this regard, the chief minister said at the groundbreaking of Workers’ Welfare Complex. The complex is being built near Sundar Industrial Estate on Manga-Raiwind Road.

Sharif said industrial workers would be allotted homes in labour colonies on ownership basis. He said the allottees, to be selected through balloting, would be able to sell their flats or plots.

He said 7,000 flats would be constructed at the complex. These would be handed over to industrial workers in two-and-a-half years. He said 300 such flats had been built in Muzaffargarh and construction of 992 flats was underway in Multan.

The chief minister said labour colonies would be set up across the province. He said the government stood by labourers, peasants and farmers on the Labour Day. “The country cannot progress until those who work hard for its development have the opportunity to prosper.”

Sharif said farmers had not received appropriate returns this year for rice, cotton and potato crops. However, he said, the government had taken steps to mitigate their problems. He said the Supreme Court had taken up a case related to the sugarcane pricing.

The chief minister criticised Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan for calling Daanish Schools a scandal and demanding that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) probe the matter. Such allegations are shameful and misleading, Sharif said.

“Khan Sahib should know that these schools have been set up for the children of the poor. Why doesn’t he criticise the institutions where children of the elite study?”

Sharif said Imran Khan should ask the NAB to question PTI leader Jehangir Tareen and the Chaudhrys [Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid’s Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi] for getting bank loans written-off. “I will extend full support to Imran Khan if he does so,” he said.

The chief minister said that instead of worrying about the judicial commission probing the electoral rigging, Imran Khan should care for those battered by a recent storm in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Earlier, Labour Minister Raja Ashfaq Sarwar said May 1 was observed to express solidarity with labourers.

“The government respects the working community,” he said.

He said the Punjab was the first province where after the enactment of 18th Amendment, a labour policy had been formulated. The cabinet has approved the policy, he said.

Secretary for Labour Mian Naveed, some assembly members and a number of labour leaders were present on the occasion.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 2^nd, 2015.