June 15, 2002	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 3, 1423

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SHEIKHUPURA, June 14: Hundreds of employees, particularly labourers of factories located on the Faisalabad Road, protested against the indifferent behaviour of the Punjab Employees Social Security Institute on Friday.

They blocked the road by burning old tyres.

Their leader A. D. Chaudhry told newsmen that seven per cent of their salaries were deducted in the name of social security every month for providing them medical facilities. Ironically, the labourers were deprived of any medical facility. The social security hospitals in different parts of the district were always without medicines and medical staff, he claimed.

Instead, the social security had set up clinics in rented shops whereas according to the direction of health ministry it should have its own hospital equipped with all possible medical facilities, he added.

He said the foremost duty of the social security was to provide maximum facilities to the labourers. But the officials concerned embezzled the funds contributed by them, Mr Chaudhry alleged.

He said there was no facility of pathological tests, X-ray and ultrasound.

He said there were more than 50 factories on the Faisalabad Road and 40,000 employees were employed there. If the authority spent the funds judiciously, the labourers would never have protested against the social security.

He demanded the Punjab government to initiate an impartial inquiry into the embezzlement of the social security funds.