ISLAMABAD:
The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has ordered to ban inter-provincial transport for two days in a week – Saturday and Sunday – implementing from April 10 onwards
The restriction will last till April 25, it further added.
“Goods, freight, medical and other emergency services will be exempted from the ban,” read a statement issued by the NCOC on Sunday.
However, the country’s nerve centre for Covid-19 response allowed the railways to continue to operate seven days a week with 70 per cent occupancy.
The ban will be reviewed on April 10, 2021 by the NCOC.
On Friday, the provincial taskforce on Covid-19 in Sindh decided to approach the NCOC, seeking a two-week ban on inter-provincial transport.
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This was decided during a meeting presided over by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah – a day after he renewed the call for a ban on inter-city bus transport – to restrict people from travelling to the province and flatten the virus curve.
Addressing the meeting, the CM said that he was not in favour of a lockdown, but only wanted a ban on inter-provincial transport so as to break the cycle of the cases being reported by restricting the movement of people.
“This is the only way to contain [the spread] of variants that originated in the United Kingdom (UK),” he said, adding even if a ban was imposed, goods’ transport and activity at the seaport would continue as usual.
Last Wednesday, during a virtual meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan and attended by chief ministers of all the provinces, Murad had suggested imposing a ban on inter-city transport for the next two weeks in order to contain the third wave of coronavirus pandemic.
