LAHORE: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday said that start of new labour inspection regime was a good initiative which would help promote small and medium industries besides strengthening country's economy.

He said this while presiding over a meeting held regarding start of new labour inspection regime in Punjab here.

Punjab Labour Secretary briefed the Prime Minister during the meeting.

The Prime Minister directed the Punjab Labour Minister Ansar Majeed Khan Niazi to ensure protection of labourers rights under new labour regime and there should be no compromise in this regard.

The Prime Minister said it was noticed during COVID-19 that government did not have statistics of more than 80 percent labourers.

He said the Punjab government should ensure that in new labour regime the data of labourers should be registered so that no one could exploit them.

He further said that under new labour regime the Punjab government should take steps to overcome child labour besides implementing such reforms which helped overcome accidents in factories.

PM Imran Khan said that registration process of small and medium industries should be made easy so that government could have maximum data of workers.

It is pertinent to mention here that under new labour inspection regime, the role of labour inspector had been minimized.

Now government would be able to do real time inspection of industries and would monitor the inspections done by government officials.

During last two years, the Punjab Labour department had issued more than 173,000 social security cards as per the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan and this helped in providing economic protection to the labourers.

Seven new hospitals and 68 schools had been set up to improve the lives of labourers.

As many as 1,346 flats had been constructed keeping in view the needs of labourers and the Punjab government was giving subsidy in this regard.

In last two years the Labour department had issued more than Rs. 3 billion under scholarship head and Rs. 2 billion for marriage grant to lessen the financial burden of workers.

Special Assistant to Punjab Chief Minister on Information Dr. Firdous Ashiq Awan and Punjab Minister for Industries and Trade Mian Aslam Iqbal was present on the occasion.