SAHIWAL: Around 30 per cent work under the 7th Agriculture Digital Census to count land ownership, landlords, agriculture machinery and livestock has been completed in Sahiwal division.

The animal census was started from Jan 1 and data collection from enumerators will be completed by Feb 10. The data collection work is being done under the supervision of the Divisional Statistical Department.

Umer Farooq, Divisional Coordinator, said the ongoing survey is the first “integrated Digital Count” of landlords and livestock in the history of agriculture census in the country.

He said Sahiwal division was divided into 376 blocks for animal head count and 30 per cent work (110 blocks) has been completed. “Census will cover geo-tagging of all agriculture households via online agriculture monitoring dashboard.”

It is learnt more than 200 supervisors and statistical enumerators have been deployed to conduct the survey being done on digital tablets by the field staff which is automatically submitted to portal.

At the first stage, around 311 master trainers were trained at Islamabad and at second stage 6,500 and 1,368 statistical enumerators and supervisors were trained at district level across Pakistan who are now doing survey across Pakistan.

PPLA: The divisional chapter of Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association PPLA on Tuesday observed a complete boycott of classed and organised a protest rally on the call of All Government Employees Grand Alliance (AGEGA), Punjab, here in the city.

The strike was observed at four institutions -- Government Graduate College, Government Imamia College, Graduate College for Women and Government College for women, Farid Town.

The protesters chanted slogans in favour of their 10-point charter of demands. They demanded that the Punjab government reverse policies on pension, leave encashment and gratuity.

The rally was led by PPLA Divisional President Azeem Sumero.

The protesters blocked college road for 40 minutes. They demanded withdrawal of pension, gratuity and leave encashment rules, abolition of Rules 17/A, stopping of privatisation of schools, hospitals and colleges under the name of public-private partnership, regularisation of contract employees, pay and service protection of contract college teachers of 2002, 2005, 2009, 2012 badges, abolition of disparity in government servant salaries, implementation of pay and pension commission recommendations, reduction of taxes on government servants salaries in recent budget, restoration of rebate by FBR over researchers and teachers’ salaries, and restoration of group insurance on retirement.

The protest was also participated by the representatives of All Pakistan Clerks Association and lab assistant staff.

Prof Shafiq Khalil while talking to Dawn said these policies were introduced by the previous interim government of Mohsin Naqvi and the incumbent dispensation of Maryam Nawaz. He said AGEGA’s earlier sit-in at Lahore Civil Secretariat was called off when the alliance leadership met Maryam Nawaz at Jati Umra and she assured them that she would resolve their matters if she was voted to power.

The gathering was also addressed by Prof Imran Jaffar, Prof Abid Raza and Ahmed Shah among others.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2025