LAHORE: Federal Commerce Minister Pervez Malik and the LCCI President Malik Tahir Javaid Saturday jointly inaugurated the LABARD Mela -2017 at Ghulam Jilani (Race Course) Park. The LCCI Vice President Zeshan Khalil, Shaista Pervez Malik, Ahmer Malik, Saeed Khan, Bao Bashir, Shahid Nazir and high government officials spoke on the occasion.
As many as more than 5000 special children belonging to various institutions took part in different activities at the LABARD Mela. The basic aim of holding this Mela is to give encouragement to the disabled persons and make them useful citizens of the society so that they could be able to play a positive role in their future life.
Federal Commerce Minister Pervez Malik, who is also president of LABARD, said that bright future is the destiny of nations that look after the distressed segments of the society enabling them to play their part in economic building of the country. He expressed pleasure that Lahore businessmen are fulfilling their social corporate responsibility by ensuring that all disabled children of the city are provided proper education and vocational training so that they could join the main stream economic activities.
While appreciating the LCCI role in making the event a big success, Federal Minister said that the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry is also extending every help to the Lahore Businessmen Association for the Rehabilitation of disabled persons as they are an important segment of the society and their active participation is necessary for country’s development. Both the speakers said that there is a need to launch specific programs for training and education of disabled persons.
The LCCI President Malik Tahir Javaid said that it is duty of every citizen to play his role for the betterment of the society. They said that over 10 per cent population of all the developing countries consist of disabled persons that needs to be taken care of by the rest of the 90 per cent in the larger interests of the whole society. He said that everyone should cooperate with organizations like LABARD as around 200,000 physically challenged people are waiting for help in the suburbs of Lahore.
Malik Tahir Javed suggested that the frequency of the LABARD Mela should be increases and should be arranged twice a year. He said that the special persons possess God gifted qualities but we all should make collective efforts for enhancing their skills so that they could become useful members of the society.
The LCCI President paid rich tributes to the organizers of the LABARd mela and said that the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry would continue to extend cooperation the LABARD for this noble cause.
Malik Tahir Javed said that there was a provision in law that private sector and public sector will employ special persons by 1% and 2% respectively. LCCI will motivate its member companies to show greater compliance to this law and may refer interested members to contact Job Placement Cell of LABARD in order to have suitable candidates.
