TAXILA, Nov 20: Federal Minister for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis Ghulam Sarwar Khan has said the government has approved a Rs500 million plan to establish technical education and vocational training institutes to produce skilled labour.

Speaking at the inauguration of a vocational training institute at Chakri near here, he said under the plan 21 polytechnic institutes would be set up in Punjab alone.

The minister said the government had also planned to establish one polytechnic institute in every district and one vocational institute in each tehsil headquarters.

Rawalpindi district would soon get a polytechnic college and two vocational centres. He said one polytechnic college, one female degree college and two girls’ schools would be established in Taxila during the current fiscal year.

The ministry of labour and the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) would play their due role in the eradication of unemployment through promotion of technical education in the country, he added.

Mr Khan said the main focus, in this regard, would on the rural areas where poverty as well as unemployment graphs had been high as compared to the urban areas. He said the Punjab government would set up vocational training institutes in all the backward areas.

He said technical education was an important tool to change backwardness in the rural areas where people mostly depended on agriculture.

He said successive elected representatives as well as the politics of baradarism had kept the people of Chakri backward. However, the establishment of the technical institute in the area, he maintained, would be the first step to root out feudalism and a harbinger to progress and prosperity. Pledges made at donors conference are evident of Pakistan’s credibility: Ghulam Sarwar

Referring to the donors’ conference, the minister said pledges made on the occasion showed that the world community had reposed confidence in the policies of the government. He lauded the timely support of various countries and organizations which would boost the relief and rehabilitation work in the quake-stricken areas.

“It also shows world leaders’ belief that assistance extended to Pakistan will be spent fairly on the reconstruction of the affected areas.”