President advises people to observe Covid SOPs during Eid

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi Monday advised the masses to follow Covid 19 pandemic related standard operating procedure (SOPs) during the upcoming Eid holidays.

On his Twitter handle, the president posted “Be careful during upcoming Eid holidays. follow SOPs and save yourself, your friends & families from sickness. Prevent what you can and let the state worry about other health issues.”

The government has announced five-day public holidays from July 8 to July 12 on account of Eid ul Azha.

The president also tagged a previous post in which he observed that the threat of Covid-19 had lessened but the pandemic was still at large.

“Please follow the SOPs adviced by NCOC to protect yourself from the latest versions of Corona virus,” he posted in a tweet. President Dr. Arif Alvi also called on the institutes and people of Pakistan to save energy to the maximum level to help reduce load shedding.

In a tweet on social media platform Twitter, he said, “I request the institutes and the people of Pakistan to save energy to the maximum level so the load shedding may reduce and the public can be served well.”

He said at no capital cost to the national exchequer, the Presidency was producing one megawatt of electricity.

“Because of our own increased daily conservation efforts, we are putting a good proportion into the national grid. All our people and institutes should take initiative at their end to conserve energy,” he added. Earlier to this, Dr Arif Alvi has directed the National Highway Authority (NHA) to appoint the widow of a deceased employee under the Prime Minister’s Assistance Package without further delay and to report compliance to the Wafaqi Mohtasib within 30-days.

While expressing displeasure, the president noted that the widow, having five minor children to support, had been denied her right for employment on the flimsy ground that she had applied for the job after the stipulated time of one year after her husband’s death.

The president gave these orders while rejecting a representation of NHA against the orders of the Wafaqi Mohtasib directing NHA to grant employment to Ishrat Bibi (the complainant) whose husband was a driver in NHA and had died during service, President Secretariat Press Wing said in a press release on Sunday.

He also observed that even though the widow had applied after a passage of more than two years and eight months after her husband’s death, but she had produced an Office Memorandum (O.M) of the Establishment Division during the hearing which took care of this aspect.

The president noted that NHA appeared to have overlooked this important fact and termed the stance of NHA on her employment as ill-founded and directed it to process her appointment.

According to the details, the widow had applied for her appointment with supporting documents required by NHA, but she was denied employment.

Feeling aggrieved, she approached the Wafaqi Mohtasib who passed the orders for her employment. NHA, however, instead of implementing the decision filed a representation with the president.

The president upheld the order of Wafaqi Mohtasib and directed NHA to make compliance within 30 days.