HYDERABAD Jan 24: The Minimum Wages Oordinance will be enforced in the educational institutions and private hospitals of Hyderabad.
This was decided in a meeting, held at the office of the regional director, labour, here on Thursday, during a visit of the labour committee of the Hyderabad District Council.
The meeting also decided that the labour department would serve notices on those organizations, which were not following the minimum wages ordinance.
The additional director, labour, giving a briefing to the district labour committee, informed that 42 factories were lying closed in Hyderabad and as a result 2,732 workers had been rendered jobless.
He said that there were 190 registered factories in Hyderabad in which 12,795 workers were employed.
The additional director, labour, further said that in 2002, inspection of 59 factories was carried out but no action was taken against any factory.
Regarding wages, he said that 122 cases were decided in which Rs10,027,000 were to be paid to the workers, but only Rs154,052 were deposited, and added that 650 cases were pending.
The delegation of district labour committee was led by its chairman Rana Mehmood Ali Khan.
PARC: The Pakistan Agricultural Research Council has constituted the Information Exchange Forum to help achieve the objectives of the Integration of Agricultural Research and Extension Activities (IAREA) project.
Headed by the director general, National Agricultural Research (NARC), the forum will have wheat commissioner; director and deputy director general, TTI, PARC; DDG, NARC; directors of agriculture information wings of the provinces; and farmers’ representatives as members.
According to the Sindh agriculture department, the IAREA project aimed at improving, strengthening and integrating agriculture research and extension services, with an objective of enhancing agricultural productivity.
The Information Exchange Forum will serve as the brain of the project and will approve standard crop production technology for crops of economic importance of different agro- ecological regions.
The constituent units of the project will take these technologies to the farmers’ doorsteps through outreach programmes, containing demonstrations, exhibitions, festivals, farmers’ field days and personal contact.
For demonstration on the fields of small farmers, the agriculture department will provide seed and fertilizers at a rebate of 50 per cent in first year, 40 per cent in second year and 30 per cent in third year.
The cost of new technologies, like parachute plantation of rice, will also be provided at 50 per cent cost to the interested growers.
The forum will also analyse the problems at the field, particularly in respect of raising the base of productivity levels of several crops.
The recommendations, filtered out by the forum, will also be printed and circulated among the agricultural extension and research wings and farming community for adoption.