PESHAWAR: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi gave credit to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Nawaz Sharif for making heavy investment in aviation and road sectors in the country.

“Actually former prime minister Nawaz Sharif introduced this vision in 2013 and made heavy investment in these two sectors,” said Premier Abbasi while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the expansion of Bacha Khan International Airport (phase-1) Peshawar on Wednesday.

He said that he had already inaugurated Islamabad International Airport and Faisalabad Airport and was going to inaugurate Quetta Airport in the next few days. Besides, he said, the government had worked out a plan to upgrade Allama Iqbal International Airport, Lahore at a cost of $500 million while Quaid-i-Azam International Airport would be further upgraded.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Adviser to Prime Minister Sardar Mahtab Ahmad Khan and senior officials of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) attended the ceremony. Chief Minister Pervez Khattak was not present in the function.

Says PML-N government achieved all milestones during five years tenure

Like Islamabad International Airport, the prime minister also inaugurated expansion of Bacha Khan International Airport prematurely as the work is scheduled to be completed in December 2018.

“CAA and the contractor were under immense pressure to at least complete face lifting of a portion so that it could be inaugurated by the prime minister before completion of his tenure in the office,” said a source.

BIKA is the fourth busiest airport in the country and average 13 international flights are operated there on daily basis.

The dilapidated condition of airport coupled with increasing passenger traffic lead to breakdown of facilities and services in airport processing areas.

He said that completion of civil work including drop lane and in and outside terminals would take time. Expansion work at the airport, which is used by CAA and Pakistan Air Force jointly, was executed in 2016.

With the completion of the expansion work, handling capacity of passengers at BKIA would increase from 400 to 900. Established in 1927, the current flow of incoming and outgoing passengers from the BKIA is 1.5 million and according to official estimates the flow of passengers would reach 3.5 million annually in 2035.

Two passengers boarding bridges have been installed.

Prime Minister Abbasi in his address said that CAA should be forward looking body. He said that BKIA would compete with Islamabad International Airport in future because of the location advantage to the later. He said that majority of the people would prefer to use Islamabad International Airport because of motorway.

About future plans, he said that work on Gwadar airport would be started very soon while expansion of Karachi airport was also on card. He said that $500 million investment in Lahore airport was also in pipeline.

The prime minister said that the government had vowed to bring revolution in transport sector and people would travel from Karachi to Peshawar via motorway. He said that airport in Sialkot was a unique model in the world that was managed by private sector.

Mr Abbasi said that the PML-N government achieved all milestones during its five years tenure. He said that surplus electricity was being generated in the country and also achieved six per cent growth rate.

He said that reforms in income tax were introduced and those earning Rs100,000 per month were exempted from tax. He said that only 700,000 people out of total 200 million paid tax and the government would have to bring seven million people under the tax net.

Addressing the ceremony, Sardar Mahtab said that air travel ration in the country was extremely poor and around 10 per cent of the total population preferred traveling by air. He said that government should further reduce tax on aviation and air travel to encourage people to travel by air.

He said that people of KP and Fata had major contribution in bringing foreign remittances because majority of them worked in Middle East and other countries. He said that expansion and up-gradation of BKIA was overdue for long time. He said that leadership of PML-N had the vision to make investment in aviation sector.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2018