Provincial Council for Rehabilitation of Disabled Punjab has decided to take stern action against those corporations and corporate organisations which do not provide jobs to the disabled as per allocated quota.
Such organisations would be bound to pay Rs 4,600 per month to the Council, otherwise the representatives of Council would check such organisations at district level and those violating the law would be fined either a lump sum amount of Rs 50 thousand or Rs 200 per day. Recommendations in this regard are being sent to federal government.
This was decided in a meeting of the Provincial Council for Rehabilitation of Disabled Punjab held under the chairmanship of Provincial Secretary Social Welfare, Shoaib Bin Aziz attended by former Chief Secretary Punjab, Pervez Masood, Chaudhry Muhammad Ashraf, Professor Naseer Mahmood and Dr Khawaja Muhammad Fayyaz, Secretary Labour Muhammad Ali Gardezi, D G Social Welfare Syed Haider Mehdi and officers of Health, Education and Information departments.
The meeting decided to recommend amendment in the act in order to increase the quota to two percent for disabled persons in all departments at district level. EDO City would be empowered to take action at district level while co-ordination among various departments at district level would be increased for the welfare of the disabled.
Member of the Council, Pervez Masood stressed the need to evolve a strategy for provision of job opportunities to the disabled persons completing training at educational and welfare institutions for disabled. Likewise, a proposal was given to distribute wheel chairs and provide facilities to disabled through NGOs.
Chaudhry Muhammad Ashraf said that 70 to 80 per cent disabled belonged to rural areas so three pilot projects should be initiated in the next annual development programme for southern, northern and central Punjab on the basis of population. Secretary Social Welfare, Shoaib Bin Aziz said that the government has substantially increased various facilities including education for the disabled persons at tehsil level. He gave various proposals to further activate the council.
D G Social Welfare Syed Haider Zaidi suggested induction of a representative of special education department. The meeting approved the decisions of the previous meeting of the council and considered a number of recommendations.