From Zeeshan Mirza
KARACHI: PIA Chief Executive Officer Air Marshal (retd) Arshad Malik on Sunday expressed his resolve to turn around the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) into a profitable organization despite many challenges, including COVID-19 pandemic.
The national flag carrier, he said, had been put on the right track and made significant progress in 2019, but it all reversed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The PIA would hopefully come out of the crisis soon as all possible efforts were underway to revive its status as one of the world’s leading airlines, he added.
Arshad Malik was addressing the regional conference of Rotary International District 3271 through video link. World Memon Organization President Salman Iqbal, Rotary District Governor Dr Farhan Essa, Association of Builders And Developers of Pakistan (ABAD) Chairman Fayyaz Illyas, former ABAD chairman Mohsin Sheikhani, and Rotarians Abdul Aziz Memon, Faiz Kidwai, Rizwan Aadhia, Shoaib Khan, Iqbal Qureshi and Ms Noureen Khan were prominent among the attendees of conference, a press release said.
The PIA CEO announced to include Rotary Platinum-Karachi President Rizwan Aadhya as member of the airlines’ board of directors for better execution of its corporate social responsibilities programmes.
Salman Iqbal appreciated the Rotary for its social services and assured his community’s support to it for great human cause.
Aziz Memon said the Rotary Club had provided scholarships to thousands of students, along with record welfare activities.Till date, the Club had spent some $4.3 billion in different sectors in Pakistan, he added.
Dr Farhan Essa emphasized that the Rotary organization should undertake more initiatives through increased participation of people for the welfare of the humanity, especially the neglected ones.
Mohsin Sheikhani said the Pakistani nation had a great history of philanthropy, mainly when calamities hit the country. On behalf of the builders community, he assured full cooperation and support to the Rotary Club in its social services.
Faiz Kidwai regretted that only 3,000 Pakistanis were Rotarians out of 220 million population. The number should be around 80,000. In Bangladesh, the number of Rotarians was 12,000 and in India their number had crossed 100,000.
The total number of Rotarians in the world was around 1.25 million, he added.
He said the Rotary had been doing a great job throughout the world. However, there was need to widen its scope for the betterment of the humanity irrespective of caste, creed and religion.
