COVID-19 pandemic: Federally administered sectors in Sindh to operate on old SOPs: NCOC

ISLAMABAD: The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Saturday announced that the Federally Administered Sectors would continue to operate in accordance with the pre-determined standard operating procedures (SOPs) as Sindh government imposed restrictions on various sectors to break disease cycle prevailing in the province.

The Sindh government has imposed various restrictions from July 31 to August 8 in view of the growing prevalence of COVID-19 pandemic, the Forum said.

In addition to the exemptions given to some sectors in the notification issued by the Sindh government, the following Federally Administered Sectors would also continue to operate in accordance with the pre-determined SOPs.

“Aerial or flight operations will continue as usual in accordance with pre-determined SOPs. Railways will continue its operation with 70 percent passengers,” the Forum decided.

However, the Forum also directed instructions to minimize the number of staff in Federally Administered Offices and perform their duties as per COVID-19 SOPs.

Pakistan Stock Exchange and related services would continue to operate as usual, the Forum announced.

Meanwhile, in a tweet, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib Saturday asked the Sindh government to follow national decisions taken through the forum of National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) to curb corona virus, instead of making unilateral decisions to impose lockdown in the province.

He said the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) by doing bad governance in the Sindh had closed down the industries and deprived people of employment. He said Sindh was having the lowest compliance of pandemic-related standard operating procedures (SOPs).

The representatives of power hungry Sindh government had nothing to do with the hardships of working class and labourers, he added.