Sources told Business Recorder that Sindh Government in August 2012, had decided in principle to take this issue with Centre through Council of Common Interests (CCI). In this regard, they further said that the provincial government had also prepared a case and succeeded to obtain full support from the two provinces, ie Punjab and Balochistan. Both (Provinces) were in favour of devolution of EOBI and WWF.
However, only Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) had opposed Sindh's opinion over the matter and said that EOBI and WWF should not be devolved, sources added. EOBI and WWF are attached-institutions of Federal Labour and Manpower Ministry. This very important ministry was devolved to provinces followed by the 18th constitutional amendment. Currently, EOBI and WWF are running under newly-established Ministry of Human Resources Development headed by Federal Minister Chaudhry Wajahat Hussein of PML-Q.
Soon after the devolution, Labour department got administrative and financial control of offices, staff, funds and other items of Central Inspectorate of Mines (CIM), Directorate of Dock Workers Safety (DDWS), Directorate of Workers Education (DWE), Implementation Tribunal for Newspaper employees (ITNE), Labour Market Information System and Analysis Unit (LMISAU), National Institute of Labour Administration Training (NILAT), National Talent Pool (NTP), National Training Bureau (NTB), Pakistan Manpower Institute (PMI) and Skill Development Council (SDC), sources said.
They further said that many meetings in this regard were held at Labour department and Inter-provincial department while, a few meetings were also held at Chief Minister House but no result came out yet. An official of labour department told Business Recorder that hi-ups of provincial government had taken this kind of decision on the request of labour department but matter still hangs in the balance.