ISLAMABAD: Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan on Thursday informed the Senate that as many as 700 staffers of Pakistan International Airlines who were inducted on dubious degrees and political affiliations in the tenures of the past governments have been terminated.
In response to supplementary questions during question hour, the minister said that those officials were not only terminated but criminal and judicial actions were also taken against them.
Regarding the allegedly fake license of pilots, the minister said that the licenses of 262 pilots were found suspicious after comprehensive background scrutiny. Following the due process, 50 pilots have been terminated, 32 suspended while cases of remaining pilots were pending in various courts.
He said the opposition should appreciate the present government’s action against pilots possessing suspicious licenses.
The minister said restrictions on PIA flight operations in the European countries would be lifted after International Civil Aviation Organisation’s safety audit in October or November.
He said flight operations to six European countries and the United Kingdom have been suspended. The approximate loss incurred due to the closure of flights after his June 2020 statement was Rs7.9 billion during the last six months.
Meanwhile, the government also informed the House that it disbursed Rs180 billion in 14.9 million people across the country under the Ehsaas programme during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan said an amount of Rs12,000 per person was disbursed.
He clarified that Benazir Income Support Programme was not being closed. A new Ehsaas survey was being carried out which would be completed by June 30, he added.
The minister said since the last data was collected in 2010-2011, it was necessary to design a more robust, widely agreed-on, technology-based, nationwide survey.
Before survey implementation, refinements had been made to increase the accuracy of the socio-economic assessment tool and poverty estimation processes, he said. He said the data was taken from NADRA and there was no political interference.
To another supplementary question, Khan said the Kamyab Jawan programme was launched under which loans were being provided to the youths on easy conditions for establishing their own businesses.
He said the scope of the Ehsaas programme has been expanded to provide assistance to the disadvantaged segments of society.
He said under the Ehsaas Kafaalat project, the government has increased the amount of quarterly stipend from Rs5,000 to Rs6,000.
He said the government has also decided to increase the number of Kafaalat beneficiaries from around five million to seven. The number was expected to be further increased to eight million by the end of this year, he added.
Ehsaas programme chairperson Dr Sania Nishtar told the House there were 34 executing agencies of various programmes and BISP was one of them.
She said after surfacing corruption, Benazir Debit Card was converted to a biometric system.
