KARACHI, Sept 16: The Sindh provincial committee of All Pakistan Newspapers Society has urged the provincial government to clear the dues of APNS members by Sept 24, and said advertisements of the information department would be suspended if the payment was not made by that date.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the committee which expressed dismay over the non-payment of dues of its member publications based in Sindh for the period from the year 2010 to June 2012, according to an APNS release.

Presided over by Kazi Asad Abid, the meeting was informed that the dues amounted to Rs450 million against the ads released by the Sindh Information Department and noted that the payment had not been made despite several communications to the information minister and secretary of the department.

The committee noted with concern that the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, District Council Karachi and District Municipal Corporations Karachi had failed to clear the outstanding dues of Rs32,405,886 against the ads released by them for the year 2009 onwards. The meeting decided to suspend the ads of these organisations from Sept 16.