May 18, 2003	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 15, 1424

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SIALKOT, May 17: The strike of surgical forging units has rendered 60,000 daily-wagers jobless and blocked the supply of raw material to the export-oriented surgical industry, which is suffering from a severe crisis as a result.

Owners of thousands of surgical forging units continued their strike for the eighth day on Saturday in Sialkot, Daska, Sambrial and Ugoki as a protest against the “unjustified” demand notices for billions of rupees that they had been issued by the Sialkot sales tax department.

The strike has adversely affected the export of surgical instruments from Sialkot and made it impossible for the industry to achieve the export target for the current financial year.

Expressing grave concern over the situation, the president of Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), Babar Iqbal, pointed out that the industry was run by illiterate vendors who were neither in a position to pay the huge amount nor could they be expected to keep documentary record as demanded by the sales tax department.

The SCCI president stressed that the sales tax department should review its decision in view of the nature of the industry and the disastrous effects of the strike.

Mr Iqbal appealed to Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali as well as the federal ministers for commerce and industries to instruct the Sialkot sales tax department to initiate a dialogue with the protesting vendors.

Meanwhile, the president of Surgical Hammers’ Owners Association, Haji Irshad Ahmed, and secretary-general Mohammad Saleem Mughal have vowed in a press release to continue the strike till the withdrawal of “unjustified” demand notices.

TEACHERS’ PREDICAMENT: More than 3,000 science and mathematics teachers in the Punjab have not been paid annual increments for the last three years.

Talking to newsmen here, Daska Science and Maths Teachers Association president Mohammad Naeem said the teachers had been appointed by the Punjab government in 2000 but were never paid annual increments.