PESHAWAR, Nov 8: The Frontier government plans to establish a 60-bed first-ever burns hospital, costing Rs870 million, for industrial workers and their families in Peshawar.

This was disclosed by provincial Minister for Labour and Manpower Sher Azam Wazir at the conclusion of a seminar at a local hotel. He said the proposed hospital would be fully equipped. He said the federal government had already set up schools exclusively for children of workers in various districts.

He claimed that whenever the Pakistan People’s Party came into power, it initiated workers-friendly and welfare-oriented projects in the country. He said that in 1974, the first PPP government headed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had given a comprehensive labour policy. The then PPP government, he said, had also introduced reforms in socio-economic sector for welfare of the peasantry, labourers and other marginalised sections of the society.

The second PPP government led by Benazir Bhutto, he said, had established a number of labour colonies out of the Workers Welfare Fund across the country, including Peshawar, Kohat and Haripur. He said the present federal government had increased minimum wages of workers from Rs4,000 to 6,000 and regularised services of hundreds of contract employees serving in big industrial-cum-commercial units.

He said the present government had also introduced the Benazir Income Support Programme for welfare of poor women, who lacked any permanent source of economic support.

The federal government, the minister said, had also lifted ban on workers’ unions in the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation, Pakistan Steel Mills and other organisations. He said that in the NWFP his department had made industrialists bound to implement the minimum wages in their organisations and industrial units.

He said millions of unskilled workers had been serving in Arab States, including United Arab Emirates, after the first PPP government came into power in 1971. He said they were not only feeding their families, but also earning foreign reserves for the country.

The minister said the present government was trying to get more jobs for skilled workers in South and East Asian countries. He hoped that Pakistan would benefit from employment opportunities in the Korean market.

He said he had discussed employment-related issued with the federal minister for labour and manpower and requested him to accommodate maximum workers from backward areas of the NWFP.