NA Body Assured To Give Relief To COVID-19 Affected Vendors Working At Airports

Sumaira FH Published October 07, 2021 | 10:50 PM

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Oct, 2021 ) :The National Assembly's Standing Committee on Aviation was assured on Thursday by the authorities concerned that relief would be given to the vendors and concessionaires of various airports, whose business had affected due to 'complete and partial' shutdown of their activities caused by coronavirus (COVID-19) Representatives of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) gave a detailed briefing to the committee, which was chaired by Haji Imtiaz Ahmed Choudhary, about the process and criteria adopted for the purpose.

The body was apprised that an independent committee had been constituted to study and evaluate the losses incurred by various business holders at the airports. Besides, the compiled data had been reconciled repeatedly to assess its authenticity.

They said the data was presented before the Civil Aviation board and consequently the relief against those losses had been approved in principle, saying "the said relief is expected to be released shortly." Earlier, the committee confirmed minutes of its previous meeting held on August 5, 2021.

The body took up three bills including "The Pakistan Airports Authority Bill, 2021", "The Pakistan Civil Aviation Bill, 2021" and "The Civil Unmanned Aircraft System Bill, 2021" that were recently introduced by the government in the National Assembly.

The Aviation Division gave a detailed briefing on the first two bills that were already being implemented in the form of Ordinances.

The committee was briefed that the main purpose of both the bills was to bring segregation in the regulatory functions and the airport services related sections of the CAA to curtail any chances of conflict of interest.

However, the committee deferred all the three bills till the next meeting due to certain observations raised by the member parliamentarians.

Among others, the meeting was attended by MNAs Chaudhry Shaukat Ali Bhatti, Faiz Ullah, Saira Bano, Malik Karamat Ali Khokhar, Tahir Iqbal, Niaz Ahmed Jakhar, Munawara Bibi Baloch, Asma Qadeer, Jai Parkash, Shahnaz Saleem Malik, Dr Aisha Ghaus Pasha, Romina Khursheed Alam, Dr Darshan and Kamal ud Din, besides Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan and the officials concerned.