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HYDERABAD, Feb 24: Activists of the Hyderabad of All Pakistan Clerks Association (district chapter) staged a protest march from the Shahbaz building to the press club here on Thursday to protest against inordinate increase in prices of essential commodities.
Addressing the protesters, the provincial secretary-general of the association, Ashraf Bozai, said that because of the unreasonable increase in the prices of essential items, it had become impossible for low-income workers to make both ends meet.
In contrast, the government had raised the salaries as well as perks of legislators and ministers as political bribe, they alleged, adding that this had further increased the sense of deprivation among the low-income people. No wonder, poor people were committing suicide, they surmised.
They demanded that salaries of low-income workers should be increased in proportion to the raise in prices of essential items. Meanwhile, activists of the National Labour Federation (Hyderabad zone) held a demonstration outside the press club to protest the increase in the prices of items.
Led by NLF provincial president Rana Mehmood Ali Khan, they raised slogans against inflation, while carrying placards and banners inscribed with slogans against the manifold increase in the prices of flour, sugar, electricity, gas and petroleum products.
The provincial president criticized the economic policies of the government, and alleged that the government claim of development and progress was just a hoax. He accused the government of committing what he called economic murder of the working class. He demanded that salaries/wages of public and private workers should be increased and the prices of essential items reduced.
DOCTORS' DEMO: Postgraduate doctors of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences held a demonstration outside the press club here on Thursday to protest against non-payment of stipend despite orders of the Sindh Governor.
Leaders of the Postgraduate Doctors Forum, Arshad Abro, Aijaz Shaikh, Mohammad Ibrahim Memon and others, said that as per orders of the Governor, postgraduate doctors were to receive stipend for 272 seats of house officers from July, 2004.
They asserted that the decision was taken in a meeting attended by the Sindh chief secretary; minister and secretary for health; vice chancellors of various universities; and the president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Pakistan.
However, despite clear directive of the governor, the accountant-general was withholding their stipend, they added. Demanding that postgraduate doctors of Sindh be paid stipend as in other provinces, they warned that if their demand was not met, a series of protest demonstrations would be held throughout the province.
