Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has approved four new labour colonies projects costing Rs 950 million for industrial workers in different districts of the province. Punjab Labour and Manpower Minister Syed Akhtar Hussain Rizvi in an exclusive interview with APP here on Thursday said that the new colonies will be established at Mian Channu in district Khanewal, Dandot district Jhelum, Defence Road, Lahore and Warburton district Sheikhupura. A total of 1619 houses will be allotted to secured workers employed in different industrial units in these colonies.
The minister said that the Industrial Labour Development Board Punjab has so far spent Rs 1.76 billion on 26 different labour colonies comprising 31,632 houses, flats and residential plots. Of these, six labour colonies were developed recently, in Gujrat, Sialkot, Sher-e-Bengal Phase I and II Shahdara, GT Road Gunjranwala and in Rahim Yar Khan, at a total cost of Rs 1.12 billion.
Rizvi said that a total of 713 flats and 1,587 houses have been allotted on merit to secured industrial workers, and asserted that the previous government had ignored industrial workers, and spent only Rs 630 million on providing them shelter.
He said the Chief Minister Punjab had in April last handed over the keys of 504 flats to industrial workers in the newly developed labour colony at Sialkot, constructed at a cost of Rs 360 million.
The Punjab government had been directed by the Chief Minister to ensure more labour welfare and betterment projects to improve their living standard and provide maximum relief to low-income groups, he said.