LAHORE, Feb 10: The laws pertaining to the cooperatives system will be amended to meet the challenges of modern times and facilitate the people.

Punjab Minister for Cooperatives Col Muhammad Anwar (retired) stated this at a seminar on '100 years of cooperatives movement and media' at the Press institute of Pakistan (PIP) here on Thursday.

He said the Punjab law department had already whetted the "proposed amendments" which would soon be presented before the cabinet for approval.

The minister said the cooperatives were an old "concept" quite close to the spirit of social welfare in Islam and useful for dealing the issues of individuals in a collective manner.

He said the British government introduced the Punjab Cooperatives Act in 1925 which "no longer meets the present day needs."

Col Anwar said cooperatives' scandal badly damaged the welfare practice in the country and urged media to improve the image of cooperatives.

He said media's positive criticism of his department helped in bringing improvement.

"The Punjab government is making sincere efforts to improve the working of cooperatives banks," he said.

About housing schemes in the province, the minister said the government has improved laws to weed out corruption in the sector.

Former federal minister Chaudhry Abdul Sattar said the cooperatives system should be made more effective so that it could serve the people.

PIP director Absar Abdul Ali highlighted importance of cooperatives movement in a society and stressed the need to follow the concept in various other sectors of life, including livestock, banking, construction industry, housing, dairy, etc.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Dr Muhammad Akram, Mian Anwar Pasha, Habibullah Khan Niazi, Dr Tariq Bucha.-APP