Islamabad, 7th October, 2021; 8th meeting of the Standing Committee on Aviation Division was held today at 11:00 a.m. in the Committee Room of Aviation Division, 8th Floor, Kohsar Block, Pak Secretariat, Islamabad, under the Chairmanship of Haji Imtiaz Ahmed Choudhary, MNA.
 
2. The meeting started with the recitation from the Holy Quran. Afterwards, the Committee proceeded with the agenda of the meeting.
 
3. The Committee confirmed minutes of its seventh meeting held on 5th August, 2021.
 
4. The Committee took three Bills on its agenda namely, “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. The Ministry gave a detailed briefing on the first two Bills and informed that the said legislation was already being implemented in the form of Ordinances that were issued by the President of Pakistan. 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 Civil Aviation Authority to curtail any chances of conflict of interest. However, all three Bills were deferred till the next meeting due to certain observations raised by the Committee. The Civil Aviation Authority also gave a detailed presentation on the process and criteria adopted for giving relief to the vendors and concessionaires at the various airports due to complete and partial shutdown of their business activities because of Covid-19. It was apprised that an independent Committee had been constituted to study and evaluate the losses incurred by various business holders at the airports and the said data had been repeatedly reconciled to assess its credibility and integrity. The said data was also presented before the Civil Aviation Board and consequently relief against those losses had been approved in principle. The said relief was expected to be released shortly.

5. Honorable Members/MNAs Ch. Shaukat Ali Bhatti, Mr. Faiz Ullah, Ms. Saira Bano, Malik Karamat Ali Khokhar, Mr. Tahir Iqbal, Mr. Niaz Ahmed Jakhar, Ms. Munawara Bibi Baloch, Ms. Asma Qadeer, Mr. Jai Parkash, Ms. Shahnaz Saleem Malik, Dr. Aisha Ghaus Pasha, Ms. Romina Khursheed Alam, Dr. Darshan and Mr. Kamal ud Din attended the meeting. The Federal Minister for Aviation, Mr. Ghulam Sarwar Khan, MNA, also participated in the meeting as its Ex-officio Member.