LAHORE: The working class has appealed to all the patriotic forces to generously contribute to the fund established by Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar for the construction of Diamer-Bhasha and Mohmand dams.

“It is not the government but the Supreme Court which opened the account for generating funds for the construction of two dams,” said a resolution adopted at a meeting of the All Pakistan Workers Confederation (APWC) held at Bakhtiar Labour Hall on Tuesday.

It was participated by the representatives and workers of the trade unions from all over the country.

The resolution said construction of both the dams has become inevitable to meet country’s increasing water and energy requirements. Both the dams would be instrumental in providing cheap and environment-friendly electricity to the industrial and agricultural sectors in particular and citizens in general.

“During the last 18 years, successive governments spent billions of rupees on the land acquisition but no concrete progress has been made so far. Head of every government performed groundbreaking ceremony of Diamer-Bhasha Dam but no civil work could be started, apparently due to lack of funds. Now the CJP has taken an initiative, with the assurance that every penny contributed to the fund would be utilised for the construction of the two major dams. We all should join hands for the future of our next generations by generously contributing to the fund,” said the resolution.

The participants also reiterated their concern over the fact that no political party has bothered to give due representation to intellectuals, peasants and workers while awarding tickets for the forthcoming general elections.

“Election manifestos of political parties also lack concrete plans of action for tackling economic and social problems facing the country,” said another resolution presented by APWC President Robina Jameel.

She regretted that the manifestos of mainstream political parties “contain no measures for social and economic uplift of women who constitute more than half of the population, by ensuring equal opportunities of education and employment, elimination of discrimination against them and enforcement of principle of equal pay for equal work”.

She urged the caretaker federal and provincial governments to increase wages and pension of the workers employed in government and semi-government departments, autonomous bodies as well as private sectors in commensurate with price hike.

Through another resolution the conference demanded that the government adopt a national action plan for elimination of poverty, aggravating unemployment, rising inequality between the rich and the poor, feudalism and monopolistic capitalism from the country.

Presented by APWC General Secretary Khursheed Ahmad, another resolution called for measures to ensure security of the electricity workers especially while preventing power theft and recovering electricity dues. It also urged the government to ensure safe working conditions for line staff in order to prevent fatal accidents.

The conference was addressed by PWC Chairman Yousaf Baloch, Additional General Secretary Osama Tariq, Akbar Khan, Chaudhary Anwar, Javed Ahmad and others.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2018