LAHORE, May 29: Hundreds of Public Works Department employees demonstrated at Lakshmi Chowk here on Saturday to protest the government's failure to control the prices of essential commodities and denial of a pay raise to the salaried group.

The workers reached Lakshmi Chowk in the form of a procession after attending a meeting of the All-Pakistan PWD Workers Union at the Bakhtiar Labour Hall on the Nisbat Road.

Some of them had taken off their shirts and hung pieces of bread around their necks, raising slogans against hunger. They dispersed after marching to the PWD offices on the McLeod Road after staging demonstration.

Earlier, union president Haji Aslam Firdausi and secretary-general Raja Amin Rathore said the families of the low-paid workers were starving because the government had given a free hand to the traders to fleece the consumers and was raising utility bills and POL prices. But it was not ready to increase pay and allowances.

Union senior vice-presidents Abdul Hamid Butt, Muhammad Riaz Bhatti and Tahir Butt demanded announcement of substantial interim relief for the government employees and industrial workers so that they could provide basic necessities to their families and pay exorbitant utility bills.

Punjab Irrigation Workers Welfare Federation President Khushi Muhammad Khokhar called for restoration of benefits like selection grades, move-overs and advance increments and payment of house rent on the running basic pay. He also demanded 40 per cent increase in the salaries of skilled workers and payment of overtime for work after the duty hours.

Zonal chairman Maulvi Abdul Hafeez (Faisalabad), Haji Mansoor (Bahawalpur), Haji Muhammad Arshad (Multan), Zafar Iqbal Chandio (Dera Ghazi Khan) and Malik Naeem (Sargodha) demanded the government that it should fix minimum wages at Rs5,000 and enhance pensions.

They also demanded regularization of workers performing duties on a par with permanent employees.