LAHORE, July 27: For the first time, the lunch break of the Mughalpura Workshop workers was delayed by an hour to “facilitate” the visit of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Railways on Wednesday.

However, the committee could not visit the workshop where around 12,000 employees work.

It has been the practice since the establishment of the workshop that lunch break begins at 12.30pm and ends at 1.30pm during summer. But on Wednesday, it began on 1.30pm when the committee members were leaving the workshop office premises.

After a briefing by the DS, the committee was scheduled to visit the workshop and meet the railway workers at the carriage and loco shops to get first-hand knowledge of their problems and working conditions there.

Sources said the briefing was started late and the committee members were kept busy by “telling them everything in detail.” Committee chairman Sardar Tufail Ahmad and Sardar Ayaz Sadiq were prominent among the members who kept reminding the administration the purpose of their visit but to no avail. Later, the committee members were asked to postpone the scheduled visit because of paucity of time.

A number of loco and carriage shops’ workers told newsmen they had attached high hopes with the NA body’s visit. “We were optimistic that we will get a chance today to convey our problems and highhandedness of the administration to the NA committee but the management bypassed us.”