Caretaker Punjab Minister, Khawaja Muhammad Jalaluddin Roomi has said that government is actively considering a proposal to form an authority for collection of provincial levies like social security contribution, old age benefit, education cess, workers' welfare fund from the industrialists, traders to facilitate them.
He was addressing a meeting at Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MMCI) attended by Khurshid Zaman Qureshi, Minister for Agriculture and Shehzad Azam Khan Minister for Labour and Human Resources.
The minister said that though government was receiving education cess of Rs 100 per worker yet no educational institution was established in industrial zone for the children of workers. The Minister said that since Pakistan is an agriculture country, we should promote and encourage the agro-based industry in the country and we should produce finished produce to earn maximum foreign exchange and to meet the challenges of WTO regime.
The minister further said that double taxation by the market committee must be stopped so that recovery could be made better. Punjab Minister for Labour and Human resources Shehzad Azam Khan said that social security contribution should properly utilise on the welfare, medicare and rehabilitation of industrial workers.
He said that Punjab government had given a new labour policy to facilitate the industrialists but they did not cooperate with the government and they did not file declaration. He said that only 17 out of the total 600 registered industries submitted their returns in Multan. He said that ILO took a serious notice of this inspection-free labour policy.
If industrialists did not cooperate with the government then it would be forced to reintroduce the inspection system through labour inspectors/officers. Secretary Labour Muhammad Ali Gardezi said that we are going to develop 800/900 single story houses for the industrial workers and we would develop labour housing colonies over 200 acres of land.
He said that 1080 boys and 950 girls were getting education in Workers Welfare school while scholarships of Rs 40,48,000 were given to 250 students. Mian Mughis Sheikh a senior member and former President of MCCI suggested that Government should give incentive/compensation to those industrialists who had developed housing colonies for their workers from their personal resources.
The Punjab Minister for agriculture Khurshid Zaman Qureshi said that Government was going to launch a pilot project to produce good quality cotton and to achieve the target of 20 million bales of cotton till 2015.