Dozens of visually impaired people continued their protest for the third consecutive day on Wednesday in Lahore, demanding that the government guarantee a "regularized livelihood" for them.
Umar Rasheed, leader of the protesters and president of a union of "blind daily bets" in Punjab, while talking with Dawn.com He said the government has been ignoring his demand from day one.
He said the agenda of one point of the protesters was "regularized livelihoods" for all visually impaired people throughout the province.
He said that about 1,000 visually impaired people hired as wage earners in various departments of the provincial government receive their salaries after an interval of several months and are not assigned any work in their respective departments.
Daily bets with visual impairment are also not assigned any designation, Rasheed said, adding that the whole scenario reveals that the daily betting program is a "temporary" agreement.
According to Rasheed, protesters demand the regularization of employment for daily bets and the provision of livelihoods for unemployed people with visual disabilities.
He said that instead of government officials, only the police approached them with mere guarantees and intimidation. He said that a day earlier they intercepted the vehicle of provincial minister Fayyazul Hassan Chohan outside the House of the Chief Minister, but instead of involving protesters in talks, the minister changed his route.
The protest leader said that more than 100 people with visual disabilities participate in today's protest.
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1515262/visually-impaired-peoples-sit-in-for-regularised-livelihood-enters-third-day-in-lahore