Necessary steps being taken to provide financial assistance to the heirs victims of Sundar factory incident: Raja Ashfaq Sarwar

Lahore: Provincial Minister for Labour and Human Resource, Raja Ashfaq Sarwar has said that all necessary steps have been taken to provide financial assistance to the heirs and severely injured persons of Sundar factory incident, including arranging compensation from owners along with pensions and other facilities from Punjab Employees Social Security Institute . He said that positive results have emerged from online labour inspections of industrial estates, using smart phones and digital technology with the help of World Bank.

The Minister stated this while presiding over two important meetings in this regard, here today. Minister for Industries Ch. Muhammad Shafiq, Secretary Labour Ali Sarfraz, CEO PIDEMIC Col. (Retd.) Naveed, Commissioner PESSI Mansoor Qadir, DG Labour Muhammad Saleem Hussain, Secretary PWWB Shahid Zaman Luk, SSP Security, Directors PESSI and representatives of the concerned departments attended the meeting.

The meeting reviewed the pace of progress in matters relating to provision of financial package to the heirs of 43 deceased workers and injured persons of the Sundar factory collapse incident. Secretary Labour Ali Sarfraz informed that Punjab government has also decided to provide housing facilities to the six heirs of deceased victims in Lahore.

Financial assistance of Rs.5 lakh each has already been provided to heirs of all 43 victims of the incident and compensation money is also being arranged from owners of the factory in this regard. Ali Sarfraz said that to avoid such tragic incidents in future, online labour inspections of all the industrial estates of the province is being carried out, with the help of latest IT technology, so as to ensure authentic data base centralized recording of information.

All the District Labour Officers have been strictly directed to complete online registration of their concerned industrial estate units, acquiring stability certificates, along with affidavits from factory owners, till December 31. Ali Sarfraz further informed that World Bank has fully supported Punjab Labour & HR Department in designing and development of this online inspections mechanism.

He said that performance of Labour Inspectors has improved with introduction of this latest technology and factory owners have also started implementing on labour laws more effectively to avoid any prosecution.

DG Labour Muhammad Saleem Hussain apprised the meeting that during labour inspections, violations of rules, regarding child labour and minimum wages have been reported and challans have been sent to the courts for further prosecution.

Minister Labour Raja Ashfaq Sarwer directed the concerned officers to meet the target of labour inspections in given timeframe, using risk profiling policy, giving priority to newly-established industrial units of the province.