WE recently celebrated the World Tourism Day (Sept 27) to foster awareness about the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political and economic value. But do we pay attention to the process of facilitating tourism? Pakistan, being the cradle of the region’s early human civilisations, has a good number of ancient tourist sites, led by Mohenjo Daro dating back to around 2,500 BC. As such, the archaeological ruins have been declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) as a world heritage site.

The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) used to provide air link through a scheduled service under the Regular Public Transport (RPT) licence from the adjacent Mohenjo Daro airport. This facilitated the tourists in planning a day visit to the monuments. Connectivity,

in particular with Karachi, extended great convenience and comfort to tourists visiting the world heritage site.

Moreover, it also benefitted the local people. However, the said air link since long has remained non-functional.

The Ministry of Aviation, probably looking with a wider perspective had visualised that the RPT operators may likely withdraw from the route, and had timely introduced the Tourism Promotion and Regional Integration (TPRI) element in the national aviation policy, offering huge incentives to the operators who would join the feeder service operation, and provide air connectivity between primary and secondary airports. Licences were issued to a number of operators who were interested in the plan, but so far none has started operating. The ministry has highlighted in the yearbook 2021-22 and 2022-23 the TPRI as its landmark achievement, but there is nothing on the ground.

It is time the ministry made the TPRI functional or took some other action to restore the air link. The Sindh govern-ment, also equally responsible after the 18th Amendment to promote tourism, should also look into the matter.

Zahid Hussain Khan
Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2024