GUJRANWALA, April 14 Final notices have been issued to owners of industrial units who are not paying social security of their workers or are involved in tax evasion.

A senior officer of the social security department said there were 3,235 units employing 43,000 workers in the Gujranwala zone comprising districts of Gujranwala, Gujrat, Sialkot, Narowal, Mandi Bahauddin and Hafizabad.

At least 1,200 industrial units were not paying social security of their workers and were defaulters of Rs1.4 million, he said.

The officer revealed that the Punjab government, which had fixed Rs125.6 million as recovery of social security from these industrial units for the fiscal year 2009-10, could recover Rs118.5 million.

A factory owner is bound to get the registration of his workers under the Social Security and Labour Act. He is required to provide the social security (tax) of these workers to the social security department, which in turn, extends better facilities to workers and their children at welfare schools.

But, a majority of factory owners and industrialists are not paying the social security of their workers to the social security department.

They provide employment on a contract basis so that they do not have to pay the social security thus depriving the workers and their children of health, education and other basic facilities.

Labour leaders Mushtaq Kashafi, Javed Iqbal Anjum and Syed Mohsin Shah criticized the industrialists for launching the contract system in factories to evade social security and termed it a clear-cut violation of the Child Labour Act.

They demanded that the contract system in all industries should be eliminated and workers be given equal rights and basic facilities of health and education.