Provincial Minister for Labour & Human Resource Raja Ashfaq Sarwar has said that Punjab government is introducing Punjab Restriction of Employment of Children Act which will help bring laws pertaining to labour closer to ILO Conventions with strict penalties to curb child labour in the back drop of tragic incident of Sundar Industrial Estate factory building collapsed incident. He expressed displeasure over poor performance and warned the lethargic District Labour Officers to complete online registration of the industrial units of the province and acquire Stability Certificates along with Affidavit from all the factory owners of the industrial estates till December 31st. He has further directed DOLs to accelerate labour inspections and School Enrolment Campaign of children of brick kiln workers.
He said this while presiding over a meeting of all the District Labour Officers of the province at IRI center Township Lahore. Secretary Labour Ali Sarfraz, DG Labour Muhammad Salim Hussain, Director Headquarters Daud Abdullah, Director IRI Tahir Naeem and all the District Labour Officers attended the meeting. Secretary Labour Ali Sarfraz said that in view of loss of precious lives in the tragic incident of Sundar Industrial Estate, there is dire need to accelerate labour inspections, make online factory registrations and implementation of labour laws to ensure basic rights and occupational safety of the labour community. He said that child labour in industrial estates of the province will not be tolerated at any cost and performance of district labour officers will be evaluated by the labour inspections and prosecution made against the violation of labour laws at industrial units. All the district labour officers informed the meeting about the progress report regarding enrolment of children of brick kiln labourers in government schools, number of factories registered online and labour inspections made. Minister Labour Raja Ashfaq Sarwar directed the Director IRI to ensure IT training of district labour officers so as to enable them to maintain online data of the factories. He further directed the Director Headquarter Labour to provide all necessary facilities including staff, tablets and transport to enable the field officers for completing their assignments of online data registration of factories, labour inspection and concerning laws in stipulated period. He reprimanded some district labour officers for showing lethargic attitude in labour inspections and enrolment of children of brick kiln at schools and said that DOLS with good performance will be encouraged and field officers showing negligence and lack of interest in their duties will be removed from their present place of posting.