ISLAMABAD, March 18: The daily-wage workers of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL), have called off their hunger strike after an assurance by the government that their demands will be partially accepted.

More then 10,000 PTCL daily wage workers all over the country were observing hunger strike for the last 10 days to press their demand for regularization of their services. The government has agreed to accommodate at least 3,500 daily wage workers against vacant regular positions by May/June this year.

Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication, Awaid Ahmed Leghari, gave the assurance in the National Assembly that the services of daily wage workers would be regularised against the vacant positions available in the company.

Shahzad Sadan, the senior executive vice president of the PTCL has directed all the regional managers to submit the status of vacant positions in thier respective regions in various cadres.

Earlier, the Islamabad administration, which faced a difficult situation because of the hunger strike and the protest camp in front of the PTCL headquarters, managed to convince the daily wage workers to end their protest and wind up their camp following a series of dialogues between the leaders of the workers and the PTCL management.