Smog hits Multan, disturbs flights

MULTAN: Smog continued to disturb arrival and departure schedule of flights at the local airport causing inconvenience to passengers.

However, situation started returning to normalcy after three international flights landed at Multan airport including two FlyDubai flights from Dubai, an airport official said adding that these flights arrived late as these were scheduled to reach Multan last Friday or early Saturday. He said that almost all the 10-12 flights scheduled for Saturday were either delayed or cancelled. Two international flights from Multan to Jeddah and Jeddah to Multan were cancelled.

A flight inquiry official said the crowd of passengers started easing after the arrival of three flights at the local airport. Multan meteorological office official said smog was expected to be cleared by Monday.

Meanwhile, the Punjab government has started subsidy on DAP fertiliser to facilitate 5.2 million farmers of the province under Khadam-e-Punjab Kisan Package.

According to a handout issued by spokesman of Agriculture department here on Saturday, the Punjab government has started giving Rs150 subsidy on each bag of DAP fertiliser. He said the initiative has been taken to facilitate farmers to decrease their production expenses. The farmers can get the subsidy through voucher in each bag of the fertiliser. He said the Punjab government is utilising all possible resources to provide maximum relief to the farmers.

He said farmers were advised to get them registered after calling at the helpline to avail the facility, and send scratch card number with national identity card number on 8070 through SMS, after that they will receive a message from the department and they will get cash from any easy paisa shop by showing them the message.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5^th, 2017.