May 30, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 24, 1429

HYDERABAD, May 29: The president of the Sindh chapter of the National Labour Federation (NLF), Rana Mehmood Ali Khan, said on Thursday that the new government had done nothing to bring down prices of essential consumer items.

He said at a pre-budget seminar organised by the NLF that prices of essential items had shot up by 25 to 30 per cent over last two months. While big industrialists, traders and feudal lords were evading taxes, workers and salaried class and even beggars were being made to pay GST, he remarked.

He feared that if the situation was not rectified, the white-collared people would also join the ranks of 50 per cent population of the country living below poverty line.

The seminar adopted several resolutions, demanding recovery of taxes from industrialists and feudal lords, strict action against tax evaders and fixation of GST at five per cent.

A resolution demanded that the president, prime minister and bureaucrats should be forced to get their children admitted to government schools, minimum wages should be fixed at Rs8,500, salaries of government employees and pension of retired employees should be increased by 50 per cent, austerity measures should be adopted and nobody should be allowed to build his house on more than 400 yards.

Another resolution demanded that Rs150 billion loan, which had been waived off, should be recovered from the capitalists, politicians and feudal lords.

DEMO: A large number of tail-end growers of Rahuki Shakh staged a demonstration on the Shaikh Bhirkio-Hyderabad road on Thursday in protest against irrigation officials for stopping water release into the shakh.

Leader of Hari Mazdoor Tanzeem Comrade Namji Bheel, Haji Babbar and others said that the crops of tail-end growers had destroyed for want of water.