May 17, 2002	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 4, 1423

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SIALKOT, May 16: The residents of villages along the working boundary have urged the Sialkot-based UN observers to take measures for the early rehabilitation of farmers affected by Indian shelling.

More standing wheat crop on 200 acres was reduced to ashes by the stepped up Indian shelling near Abiyaal Dogar and Chak Qaziyan villages of Sialkot working boundary’s Shakargarh-Narowal sector late on Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, Indian forces continued on Thursday intensified shelling on border villages in Sialkot working boundary’s Chhumb Joriyaan (Gujrat), Bajwat, Charwa, Sucheetgarh, Harpal, Jammu, Akhnoor, Saamba and Shakargarh-Narowal sectors.

No causality has yet been reported so far.

LABOUR POLICY: Federal minister for labour, manpower and overseas Pakistanis Awais Ahmad Ghani has said that government had started implementing a comprehensive labour policy.

He was addressing a seminar on eradication of child labour from Sialkot’s surgical industry, organised jointly by ILO and the government of Italy here on Thursday.

The minister said the government would soon introduce a special package of incentives for the industrial workers and labourers. He said the federal government had established 18 schools in the country for the provision of quality education to the children of the industrial workers and labourers. “Now it plans to establish one school at every district level.”

Addressing the seminar, Punjab Minister for C&W, Labour and Manpower Muhammad Tariq said that government had established child labour awareness centres at every provincial level. Such centres would be established at every district level in future.