September 20, 2005	Tuesday	Sha'aban 15, 1426

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TAXILA, Sept 19: Federal Minister for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis Ghulam Sarwar Khan says the government is making concreted efforts to achieve the target of exporting 200,000 workers this year.

Talking to this correspondent at his native village Pind Noshehri Khan on Monday, the minister said the government was taking steps to extend maximum facilities to the expatriates in order to boost their confidence in the present political setup.

He said the government attached top priority to the solution of problems of the expatriates and, therefore, it was decided to ensure their representation in the OPF board of governors.

He said the government had succeed to get the status of source country under which Pakistan would be able to export skilled and semi-skilled workers. He said Pakistan and Malaysia had entered into a contract under which the latter would employ 100,000 Pakistanis in construction, manufacturing, services and agriculture sectors.

He said after these four sectors the range areas of exporting Pakistani workers would be expanded with the passage of time. He said Malaysia wanted to introduce One Umbrella System for foreign workers under which housing, food and medical facilities would be provided.

The minister said the Malaysian government was keen to adopt a mechanism to protect the legitimate rights of Pakistani workers. He further said that the Overseas Employment Corporation (OEC) had received a demand of 4,700 workers from Kuwait that would be announced through an advertisement soon for formal selection of the workers according to the set criteria. He said this was the biggest ever demand during the last decade from Kuwait.

He said the uplift activities initiated by the government had started yielding results and the “fruits of development and prosperity were reaching the masses”.

FIRECRACKERS: Fire crackers were being sold openly in various parts of Taxila and Wah Cantonment on the eve of Shab-i-Barat despite a ban on their sale.

The directives issued by the Punjab Home Department to check the sale and use of fire crackers are being violated. The residents of the twin cities complain that youngsters let off powerful fire-crackers to their inconvenience.

The Punjab government had prohibited the sale of fire- crackers to maintain the solemnity of Shab-i-Barat.

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