'No child working in industrial units'

Sindh Employees Social Security Institution (Sessi) Commissioner, Rasool Bux Phulpoto has said that there are no more instances of child labour working in industrial units.
Not only international laws in this regard had become highly stringent, which could affect the exports if it was found that children had been used as labourers, but Sindh Minister for Labour Adil Siddiqi was also more harsh on this count.
Addressing a radio press conference on Sunday, the Sessi commissioner said that Labour Minister had issued clear instructions that any instance of use of children as labourers in the industrial concerns be brought to his notice.
He said that concept of social security was launched in March 1967 at a limited scale, but today Sessi had become the biggest organisation having registered thousands of workers since it came into being in 1970. He said that at present the workers getting wages Rs 4000 or more were registered with Sessi.
He said that Sessi had recommended the government to raise the wage scales upto Rs 10,000 so that increased number of workers could be registered for taking care of their welfare.
Phulpoto said that federal government would consult all the four provinces in this regard before amending the law. Replying a question, he said, Sessi keeps watch on industrial units having required number of workers that they get themselves registered with Sessi.
At present over 0.351 million workers of 18,870 registered units are covered by the social security and if their dependants are also included, the number goes upto 2.183 million. He said that it was the responsibility of Minimum Wages Board to see that workers were being paid wages not less than the prescribed amount.
He said that to ensure that the checking staff did not colludes with the management of industrial units to help them avoid their registration with Sessi, they too were checked by vigilance staff of Sessi to see that information was not being concealed.
Rasool Bux said that the industrial concerns concealing the information were heavily penalised, which run into millions of rupees. He admitted that number of female workers in industrial units was quite less than male workers. However, their number is higher in industries like bangle industry in Hyderabad.