From Zeeshan Mirza
KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has instructed additional home secretary to form a committee in order to formulate standard operating procedures (SOP) so that businesses can start operations again amid the coronavirus lockdown.
Shah said that he wanted the committee to frame SOPs for every business sector, including malls, superstores, shops, bakeries and transport, even for the holy month of Ramazan, adding that even if the lockdown was relaxed after April 14, the guidelines would still be “mandatory” to follow.
He informed his ministers that industrialists had asked him to allow businesses, especially those that have to fulfill export orders, to start operations again.
The committee would comprise medical experts, industry and labour secretaries, senior members of law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Sunday issued directives for the provincial authorities and the law enforcement to devise standard operating procedures (SOPs) to allow export-oriented industries and other businesses to resume functioning from April 14.
Chairing a meeting Sunday, he directed the labour, industries, and health departments, as well as the law enforcement agencies to work out SOPs based on the opinion of health experts and principles of labour and industries at the earliest so factories be allowed to open during the coronavirus pandemic. The meeting deliberated on a suggestion of exporters and industrialists seeking conditional reopening of industrialists in order to meet export orders.
Murad Ali Shah said had it not been for the contagion, the government will not have shut industries.
