LAHORE: All sugar mills, which stopped crushing or otherwise, must restart by Jan 10 and agriculture as well as food departments should keep an eye on the situation, directed Chief Minister Usman Buzdar while presiding over the 23rd cabinet meeting at his office here on Tuesday.

He further directed to constitute a committee for monitoring the situation in future and asked the cabinet legislative committee to come up with necessary leg-islation in this regard. `Exploitation of the sugarcane farmers will neither be tolerated nor delay in payments,` he assured.

He also asked the ministers to continuously monitor the crushing season and administrative officers must ensure the protection of sugarcane farmers` rights in their respective districts.

Earlier, the food secretary briefed the cabinet about the crushing season and said so f ar 8.4 million ton of cane had been crushed and Rs22 billion paid to farmers.

About 99 per cent of payments were cleared last year, he claimed.

The cabinet constituted [a] women hostel authority along with the approval of the appointment of Atif Bajwa as the president of Bank of Punjab.

The meeting also gave ex post facto approval to joint investigation teams constituted in the province and authorised cabinet sub-committee on law and order for granting necessary ex post facto approval.

This sub-committee would give ex post facto approval of JITs af ter review and the authority will rest with the cabinet sub-committee to constitute JITs in future.

The cabinet decided to establish e-rogzar centres in colleges and abolish superstructure tax for sale deeds in special economic zones and industrial estates.

Approval for constitution of boards of management for children`s hospital and the Institute of Child Health, Multan, was also granted while the agenda item of upgrade of dif ferent posts in the light of recommendations of a committee headed by the additional chief secretary was deferred.

The meeting approved signing of MoU for tree plantation in Karole Forest (Shahdara) and measurement as well as estimation of trees falling in the way of dualization of motorway link Kohat via Jand, Pindi Ghaib to Khushalgarh (package-I) project.

The meeting approved to increase the licence fee for keeping grey and black Francolins along with the approval of amendments in Punjab Urial Conservation, Protection and Trophy Hunting (Committees) Rules, 2016 and inclusion of grizzly bear in Punjab Wildlife (Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Management) Amendment Act, 2007.

Approval for amendments in section 2 (1) (a) (h) (j) of Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act, 2016 was granted and the meeting also decided to empower the deputy commissioners for creating ease of doing businesses by the environment department at the district level.

The cabinet decided to amend the Punjab Local Government (Appointment and Conditions of Service) Rules, 2018 and accorded approval to amendments to Ogra Ordinance, 2002 and the draft summary about the formulation of Pakistan Petroleum Exploration and Production Regulatory Authority.

Minutes of the previous cabinet meetings (21st and 22nd) were endorsed along with the approval of decisions made in the 20th meeting of cabinet standing committee for finance and development.