Chitral people seek rebate in PIA fares

CHITRAL, April 21: People of Chitral have urged the PIA management to bring down fare charges on Chitral-Peshawar route so that they could benefit from the airline service.

When contacted, a PIA official told Dawn that the number of flights were seven a week till last month, which had now been reduced to four owing to decreasing number of passengers.

He said that the average number of passengers per flight of the 52-seater ATR-72 aircraft on the route had dropped to 20 only, resulting in losses for national carrier.

A single fare on the route is Rs6,500, which includes Rs2,120 as airline fare, 18 per cent central excise duty, five percent each as service charges and provincial government tax, Rs320 airport tax and Rs3,000 fuel surcharge.

Official sources said that the fuel surcharge of Rs3,000 on each passenger of the airline was uniform in country irrespective of the length of destination.

However, the people of Chitral have urged the airline management to cut the fare to an affordable level.

They feared that the flight on Peshawar-Chitral might be abandoned if the number of passengers continued to drop.

Former district nazim Maghfirat Shah said that if Rs3,000 fuel surcharge

was quashed for the people of Chitral the fare would come to an affordable level.

KALASH BACKED: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) has demanded of the government to allocate one reserved seat each in the National Assembly and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly for Kalash people of Chitral due their indigenous status.

The demand was made by PTI candidate for NA-32 Abdul Latif Khan and PK-89 candidate Sultan Mohammad at a press conference here the other day.

They said that the Kalash were indigenous people of the soil and as per UN charter the indigenous people of an area were entitled to separate representation in the parliament.

They said that special efforts were needed to preserve the unique Kalash culture and it was possible only by giving them special representation in parliament.