FAISALABAD: The district government constituted a four-member committee to categorise skilled and non-skilled visually impaired persons so that they can be adjusted in various departments according to their qualification.

District Coordination Officer (DCO) Noorul Ameen Mengal held talks with the visually impaired persons, who had staged protest demonstrations for two consecutive days in Lahore and arrived in Faisalabad on Tues day night.

Both sides reached a verbalagreement for resolution of their issues and a second meeting will be held on Monday at the DCO office.

Bilal Hasan, a focal person for pro-testers, told Dawn the visually impaired people had been demanding their job rights for months and requested the DCO a number of times to resolve their issues, but to no avail.

He said the DCO categorically told them he could not do anything without orders from the Punjab government.

`Refusal by the DCO forced us to go to Lahore to get attention of the provincial government,` he added.

Hasan said 93 visually impaired persons were working as daily wagers in various departments and the government was regularising them. Now the DCO had assured them of providing regular jobs. He said a four-member committee comprising three officials as well as himself would compile the data of visu-ally impaired people for a permanent solution.

DCO Mengal told Dawn most of the protesters were already on their payroll and they would try to adjust educated persons in schools, vocational centres and offices to satisfy their self-respect and ego.

He said these people had again been called to the DCO office on Monday and the exercise to accommodate them would take a few days.

`We have also called the regional head of Bank of Punjab for their bank accounts as they were complaining of late payment of salaries.

The DCO said visually impaired people had been demanding regular jobs in government departments but that was not the domain of district administration.