The Senate’s Standing Committee on Aviation held its first ever meeting after its reconstitution in the backdrop of recent Senate Election in the country. The Committee held in-depth deliberations on various issues relating to Country’s Aviation Industry including PIA’s Pilots issues, functions of the Aviation Division and its attached departments, working procedures of various attached departments, budget, number of employees and problems and the performance of the institutions. A detailed briefing was given by Secretary Aviation Shoukat to the committee on the Aviation Division’s mission, subsidiaries, functions, organizational structure, number of employees, aviation budget and performance. According to reports, the meeting was chaired by Senator Hidayatullah and attended by the Committee members, heads of Aviation related departments including Meteorologist and Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan. As said, the Senate Committee looked into the various aspects of the aviation division to improve its performance and discussed its future plan to confront the professional challenges. It also went through the measures taken by the Aviation Division to improve performance of the attached departments and its future plans to tackle the confronted challenges on the professional front. It is surprising that aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan was also present during the hearing of the upper house committee related to his ministry. Whether he was called upon by the Committee or sat in the hearing at his own discretion to cover up the mess of his ministry. Earlier a year ago, the Aviation Minister had plunged the Pakistan International Airline into a severe financial and reputational crisis at international level through his irresponsible behavior on the issue of fake licenses of the pilots. Later, Sarwar and his affiliates covered up the issue in the same Senate Standing Committee through childish stories of software malfunctioning and our learned law makers did not object to the blunder. Yesterday’s meeting was told that about 82 PIA pilots were carrying fake licenses, however despite the numbers or gravity of the issue the manner in which the case was dealt by the Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan and his advisors was pretty objectionable rather treacherous. This behavior not only defamed the institution but also earned huge financial loss and embarrassment for the country.
