HYDERABAD, Nov 10: Sindh Minister for Minorities Dr Mohan Lal on Monday asked the Hyderabad Development Authority to pay salaries to the lower employees of the Water and Sanitation Agency as early as possible.
Speaking at an open katchehry at the Circuit House, he said that HDA workers’ problems would be brought to the notice of Sindh chief minister and would be solved on priority basis.
He expressed surprise that the officers were being paid salaries on a regular basis but the poor workers were being ignored. The government had decided to strengthen the HDA and officers must step up required paper work so that workers’ problems were solved at the earliest, he said.
The minister said that the PPP government had evolved a strategy to solve problems of the poor on priority basis through open katchehries at Chief Minister House and in each district headquarter.
He said that the bureaucrats who were avoiding open katchehries or were not paying attention to the instructions issued by the ministers in open katchehries would be taken to task.
In response to a complaint about katchi abadis, the minister said that in addition to existing katchi abadis, survey of 80 more katchi abadis was being carried out in Hyderabad after their identification by local party leaders.
To a demand for development in Qasimabad, the minister said that a special development package for Qasimabad was in the pipeline.
The minister said later to journalists that encroachments on minorities land had been removed. His ministry was working for the welfare of minorities and many steps had been taken in this regard, he said.
The minister received many complaints against police, revenue, katchi abadis, HDA and other departments in the course of open katchehry and issued orders on the spot.
Market committee employees
The All-Sindh Market Committee Workers Union on Monday complained that the employees of the committees had not been paid salary for months and demanded that the government pay them salary directly from the treasury office on the pattern of Punjab.
Speaking at a news conference at the press club, the president of the union, Habibullah Khan and other office-bearers said that all market committees of the province were collecting tax on agricultural produce, including wheat, flour, sugar, cotton, fruits, vegetables and livestock and their employees received salary from the market committees which were running in deficit. They said that the salary of employees had been withheld for months and in some cases for two to three years and demanded that they be paid salary directly from the treasury on the pattern of Punjab.
The market committees should deposit all the collected revenue with the Sindh government, they said.
To a question, they said that there were 73 market committees in the province and total number of workers was 761.
To another question, they said that grade-1 to grade-10 employees were not entitled to any pension or gratuity and claimed that if revenue was collected honestly and properly, only Karachi market committee was in a position to pay monthly salary of all the employees.
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