LAHORE, March 2: The Punjab cabinet decided on Thursday to discontinue out-of-turn promotions in all government departments, ban fresh registration of vehicles already registered in other provinces and to allow import of seeds by the private sector.

The cabinet which met under Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi also decided to give age relaxation for jobs to the children of police officials who lost their lives in the line of duty, and to strictly check sale of milk in the used plastic drums.

While taking the decisions, the cabinet approved tabling of relevant laws in the provincial assembly for necessary amendments.

It also approved presentation of the Seed (Amendment) Act 2006, in the assembly for adoption, ensuring the supply of quality seeds to farmers and stringent punishment to those selling spurious ones.

Another decision was to grant degree-awarding status to the Ali Institute of Education which trained teachers.

Officials said the cabinet decided to give age relaxation to the children of the late police officials on case-to-case basis.

The permission to the private sector to import seeds would end the monopoly of the Punjab Seed Corporation and encourage healthy competition in this regard.

The chief minister announced the recruitment of another fully qualified 16,000 teachers and said as many as 29,000 of them had already been employed.

He said it was necessary to encourage government servants showing the best performance, but out-of-turn promotions were depriving others of their right. Therefore, the government had decided to discontinue such promotions by amending the Civil Services Act, and to instead give awards and other prizes to those showing outstanding performance.

Mr Elahi said the present government had given unprecedented importance to teachers’ training, which was the most important facet of the education sector. For the purpose, he said, the government was encouraging teachers’ training institutions in the private sector.

The cabinet was informed that the fresh registration facility for vehicles from other provinces was being misused in Punjab. In some instances, stolen vehicles were registered again in the province and used for criminal activities.

The cabinet, nevertheless, decided to allow usage of vehicles from other provinces in Punjab and their transfer to new owners.

The meeting also reviewed apprehensions about the bird flu. It was informed by the livestock officials that not a single case of the disease had been reported from anywhere in the province. Some people had died in Lahore because of pneumonia and not of bird flu.

They said samples of 44,000 chicken and other birds were obtained from all over the province but no disease virus was found in any of them. The officials claimed that chicken in Gujranwala died not of bird flu but of ‘castle’ which was a common poultry disease.

However, the chief minister directed the officials to be prepared for any situation arising with regard to the outbreak of bird flu despite these satisfactory survey reports.

Earlier, the chief minister informed the cabinet in detail about the role of the government and the attitude of the opposition regarding the publication of the blasphemous cartoons by some western newspapers.

He said by refusing to become a part of a Pakistani delegation which was to visit the European Union member countries to register its anguish over the caricatures, the opposition had established that it wanted to advance its political agenda under the garb of protest. The opposition, he said, had also established that it did not want to take part in any move which could benefit the cause of the Muslims at international level.