March, 24 2005	Thursday	13 Safar 1426

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SIALKOT, March 23: Various labour bodies in the city have expressed concern over the inordinate delay in the allotment of 504 plots in the Sialkot labour colony. The residential plots for industrial workers remain unalloted despite passage of a year. Local veteran labour leaders Mian Abdul Shakur, Niaz Ahmad Naji and Abdul Jalil Bajwa told journalists here on Wednesday that the colony on main Sialkot-Pasrur Road was completed one year ago by the Punjab government at a total cost of Rs320 million for providing better housing facilities to the Sialkot-based labourers and industrial workers closer to their work places. The provincial and district governments had announced to allot these plots to the labourers through a draw, they added.

The leaders said that in May 2004, the district government’ labour department had invited applications from the workers for the allotment of these plots, but since then there was no progress on the scheme, which was creating uncertainty among the labourers.

They claimed that the delay in the allotments was only because of some differences among the local politicians, who were politicizing this issue for their own ends, neglecting the interests of the labourers and industrial workers.

They urged the Punjab chief minister to intervene and settle the issue.

Protest: The Shehri Haqooq Committee, Daska, at its special meeting on Wednesday expressed grave concern over the construction of main disposal centre in the tehsil’s only cricket stadium being looked after by the Tehsil Municipal Administration.

The committee unanimously passed a resolution against the project and urged Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi to take stock of the burning issue.

Daska Markazi Anjuman-i-Tajran President Mian Muhammad Ashraf presented the resolution at the meeting, which was presided over by committee’s head Shahbaz Ali Mohsin.

The participants pledged to take immediate collective steps to stop the disposal centre’s construction.