GUJRAT: The 12-day long strike at the Arazi Record Centres (ARCs) across the province and the sit-in by the field staff of the Punjab Land Record Authority (PLRA) in front of Punjab Assembly in the provincial capital ended on Friday after the Lahore High Court (LHC) ordered the protesting staff to end their strike.

On the other hand, the Punjab government has also accepted the demand of an immediate increase in salaries of the PLRA staff and the law and services departments have been directed to complete process of framing service structure and job regularisation for the PLRA field staff within the next two months.

A spokesman for the PLRA told Dawn the field staff ended their protest following the LHC orders and the PLRA staff across Punjab would resume work at the ARCs on Nov 25 (Monday).

Earlier, a special meeting of all the stakeholders in the long standing rift between the PLRA and the field staff was initially chaired by Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat and later on Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi was held.

PLRA chairman Sirdar Ahmed Khan Dareshak, director general Hafiz Shaukat Ali, secretaries of finance, law, services and regulations, representatives of the board of revenue and the field staff association participated in it.

An office-bearer of the PLRA field staff association who attended the meeting told Dawn that after listening to all both the parties, Pervaiz Elahi directed the finance department to complete the procedural work for the increase in the salaries of field staff which was already approved by the PLRA board of directors.

He said the Services and General Administration Department had been tasked by the speaker and the law minister to complete work on service structure and job regularisation while all the punitive actions like termination of service and issuance of the show cause notices to several officials of the ARCs by the PLRA DG had also been withdrawn.

He appreciated the role of Punjab Assembly speaker and PLRA chairman for resolution of the matter and announced resuming the office on Monday at the ARCs.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2019