ISLAMABAD: Thousands of employees of the utility stores corporation of Pakistan launched a protest sit-in in Islamabad on Monday.
The protest has been started after the federal government decided to close all the utility stores across the country. On Monday morning, the employees in the forms of rallies reached Islamabad from different cities and staged the Dharna outside the headquarters of the utilities stores corporation.
Addressing the gathering, the leaders of the protesters said that their are about 11000 people working with the utility stores. They said that the closer of the utility stores would affect 11000 families in the country at a time when people were hit har by rising inflation and unemployment.
The protesters said that the government had taken a one-sided decision of closing the utility stores without making any plan for adjustment of the employees in other departments. They demanded that the government should withdraw its anti-worker decision otherwise they would expand its protest movement.
The federal government two days back decided to close all the utility stores across the country,l.
The utility stores being run under the Utility Stores Corporation of Pakistan provided subsidized essential food items to the low-income groups of citizens.
The government provided billions of rupees to the utility store corporation for purchasing the essential items from different companies and provide them to the consumers at lower than market rates.
However, recently the government abolished most of the subsidies on essential food items in these stores.
There are 11,000 employees, including 6,000 regular, working in the utility stores across the country, including Chitral.
The officials added that the federal government had asked the utility stores corporation to wind up its dealing with the companies concerned within two weeks.
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