LAHORE – The air-conditioning system of the PIA Town Office building is not working properly for the past three to four years, but the management is still paying Rs140,000 monthly charges to the contractor who is responsible for the system’s maintenance, sources in the PIA informed this scribe on Monday.
The sources claimed that though the PIA’s management had an alternative connection in case of electricity failure and had also got the Town Office building exempted from loadshedding, the air-conditioning system was not working properly because of the negligence of the maintenance contractor.
It is worth mentioning here that the PIA has been awarding contract of maintenance to only one contractor – Al-Rouf Air Conditioning – for the past seven to eight years for reasons best known to the management.
An officer of the PIA said that Rouf was also chosen as maintenance contractor for Allama Iqbal International Airport though he was not paying heed to the poor air-conditioning at the Town Office.
Another officer said on condition of anonymity that it was very difficult to work in such suffocating heat without any cooling. “There is no window or exhaust for ventilation and it becomes difficult to work efficiently.”
A passenger who visited the PIA office to get his ticket issued questioned what sort of airlines was the PIA that its office was not even air-conditioned.
An officer working on ticket reservation said that computers worked only in specific cooling and though the management had installed split units in the reservation hall they were not sufficient to maintain the required temperature there.