Provincial Minister for Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Social Welfare Raja Basharat on Friday reprimanded the administrative secretaries of several departments for their failure to recruit 300 visually-impaired persons in different departments despite the passage of a long delay.

While chairing a review meeting on the progress of recruitment of 645 visually-impaired daily wagers working in 17 departments of the Punjab government at Civil Secretariat on Friday, the Minister expressed indignation over the slow pace of work by senior officials and called for another meeting of the administrative secretaries on February 11. The officers of the concerned departments and representatives of the blind daily wagers also attended the meeting.

A few months ago, Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar had constituted a committee headed by Raja Basharat to transfer the services of visually-impaired persons from daily wagers to contractual employment when a number of special persons went on strike. Although the committee had already directed the concerned authorities in several meetings to chalk out a comprehensive recruitment strategy in this regard but the recruitment of over 300 blind people was still in the pipelines.

"Despite the clear and strong directions of the Chief Minister, the attitude of the departments is unbearable," the Minister remarked during the meeting. He warned that the remaining recruitments should be completed within 15 days.

During the meeting, it emerged that the Punjab irrigation department, housing, zakat, local government and environment have so far made recruitments. "The blind people greatly deserve our sympathy and we all should help them," Basharat said, and assured the representatives of the blind employees that the promise made to them would be fulfilled at all costs. The Minister, however, praised the departments of labour, industry, special education, S&GAD and public prosecution for completing the recruitment process.