A small yet significant news caught my attention the other day. On November 30, 2007, Sialkot International Airport got its inaugural commercial flight. Pakistan thus adds one more feather in its infrastructure development. The IATA designation of this airport is SKT. It is now the 45th public airport/air strip in Pakistan. There was an inaugural Boeing 737, PIA flight from Karachi the same day, which landed at Sialkot International Airport with 118 passengers. Currently the only flights available to and from Sialkot are from Karachi but very soon Sialkot will get direct overseas flights.
Sialkot International Airport has been built by the local business community on a “self-help basis” at a cost of US $33 million. Sialkot is very fortunate in a sense that local business community plays a vital role in its development. To build, own and operate this airport a company was established in 2001. It is called the Sialkot International Airport Limited (SIAL).
SIAL is a company with 223 directors, each of which has invested Rs 5m of capital in the project as the primary investment. Each of the directors was invited to take part in the project because of their previous experience of running sizeable and successful enterprises.
In order to construct the new airport SIAL contracted NESPAK to develop the master plan and after much deliberation and consultation over two years a fully integrated plan was finalised and approved by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
Sialkot International Airport is located 14 km west of Sialkot and is spread over an area of 1050 acres. It also has the longest commercial runway in Pakistan. The runway length is 3.6 km and width is 45m with 7.5m wide shoulders on either side. Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has graded this runway as 4E.
The Link Taxiway is 263-meter long, 23-meter wide with 10.5-meter shoulders. The apron covers an area of 45000 sq meters and the airport can nose-in park four Boeing 747s simultaneously.
The construction of the airport was approved in 2001, the construction work started in January 2003 and on March 26, 2005 the first ever plane landed here.
Following image shows convenient road distances from different cities which are projected to benefit from Sialkot International Airport.
10 km west of the airport flows river Chenab and currently there is a bridge called Shahbazpur Bridge under construction there. Once completed, the bridge will reduce the distance between the cities located at either side of the river. It will provide an easy access to the whole region including Sialkot International Airport, Sambrial Dry Port, Export Processing Zone Sialkot and the industries of Sialkot. It will help the airport to become a gateway for the people of Gujrat, Kharian, Lalamusa, Jhelum and Azad Kashmir. The work on this bridge started in 2005 and is expected to be ready in 2008.
Once the overseas flights start from Sialkot, it will become Pakistan’s 9th International airport. Current International Airports of Pakistan are:
1. Jinnah International Airport Karachi (KHI),
2. Allama Iqbal International Airport Lahore (LHE),
3. Islamabad International Airport (ISB),
4. Peshawar International Airport (PEW),
5. Quetta International Airport (QET),
6. Shaikh Zayed International Airport Rahimyar Khan (RYK),
7. Gwadar International Airport (GWD), and
8. Turbat International Airport (TUK).
References:
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Sialkot airport will deliver many benefits to the people of pakistan and it also reduces the travel time between the different cities of pakistan, and Inshallah will increse the investemnet in pakistan.
hello sir may i know please when u start properly intenational flights?
As a Sialkoti i am very proud of the achievement even though my participation in materializing any part of the project has been nil, Residing most of the year overseas didn’t help.
Its only the beginning, Shaheens of Sialkot have lot to do yet or their city.
Sialkot has made humongous amount of money for the country in the past 50 years but the city itself is in mess other than where the Army generals reside and work. The city needs urgent attention (in terms of Rs) of the provincial and federal government.
1) City’s roads are broken,
2) Broken and blocked sewerage makes them dirty ponds,
3) Their is no traffic control system,
4) Roads present chaotic scenes,
5) Bureaucrat machinery impeding the business community every step of the way,
6) Power shut down is another big obstacle in increasing production and therefore revenue in export,
7) Hospitals needs desperate overhauling,
8) Regulations are needed in improving the standards of
i) medical doctors who set up their clinics on banks of sewerages and their clinics are filthy,
ii) transporters
9) police busy filling their pockets instead of putting a lid on gangsters who are hanging loose and displaying weapons without any fear.
We will overcome these shortcomings but get involved with Sialkot and Sialkotis.
when i lisen about take off flight. I realy surprise that our country makes the air port very quickly. but i want to know that this air port makes for all international air line. and other one i am very happy and very plesure. my all best wish about my country.
Owais Mughal,
I hope this post will be useful for many of us,
ali.m.m.khan,
Sufism,
@ you disagree with me, ok its your right, but I would
have appriciated if you could have given me one historian’s
reference, may be you have them, there are many legendaries:
you mentionned one but that one exist around Ka’aba with
the description you gave, you were talking about Ashab-e-
Suffa, besides, there is,
A ’sofa’ that Prophet (SAW) had next to His Hujjra ?
A greek word ‘ Sufe’ so its Greek,?
Infact, The Arabic word Tasawwuf used for mysticism
is derived from “süf ” i.e wool as the mystics or sufis clad
themselves in rough and coarse wool just to hide their
nakedness.
Ibn-e-Khaldun refers to AlQushayri who says:
‘No etymology or analogy can be found for this term in
Arabic language. It is obvious that it is a nickname. The
most obvious etymology, one used, is that which connects
the word with as-süf, because sufis, as a rule, were
characterised by the fact that they wore woolen garments,
(Muqaddimah, vol.3, p.76 translated Franz Rosenthal).
According to Muhammed Faharshafqa,
” there was no trace of the word tasawwuf in the Arabic
language, nor was it known in the days of the Prophet(SAW)
and his caompanians”
(Al-Tasawwuf, p.12, Cairo,1970)
“The individual surname al-sufi appeared in history in the
second half of the eighth century with Jabir ibn-e-Haiyan,
a shiiat alchemist of Kufa, who professed an ascetic doctrine
of his own”
(Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam 1961 P.579 )
For Jahiz the word sufism applied to a semi chiiat school
of luslim mystics which originated in Kufa, the last head
of which ‘ Abdak al-Sufi died in Baghdad about 825 AD.
Further elaborations were explained in Muqaddimah of
Ibn-e-Khaldun. Then the speculative theologians started
their own dichotomy of the matter, and we ended up like
usual, fabricating legends, rumours, associations, called
in classical Arabic “Bidah”. We have plenty of score boards
in different centuries running behind something which
never existed, then we have to invent something to creat
sensations, emotional luxury for theologians and a flagrant
“separatism” for the poor ” followers”.
Mystics exist in every culture, civilization, epoch, Empires
religions, sects, para-sects, etc etc.
Demystification won’t be anymore mystic, agreed ??
A so called sufi never calls himself a Sufi, otherwise he is
no more a sufi.
Fil amaan
RE
@you must be working with Pakistan Tourism, you have
put every thing about Sialkot (silkot) Ali.m.m.khan must
be the happiest Sialkotia on earth today, I am so happy to
have it, I wish could visit that city with such history,
BTW you forgot to mention the culprit’s details who
allocated controversially Gurdaspur, Pathankot and others
is known as the damned colonial anti-Pakistan vengeance
” Radcliff award”.
ali.m.m. khan,
Voyage in 18th century Amritsar
@Sufi Risala 1910, 20
I have to begin with my Nana jan, Mohammed Hussain
Khushnood,(died 1935) head post-man in Amritsar, a Sufi poet in Farsi Urdu, Punjabi Sarieky, Gormukhy, studied in Anjuman….high School had a bosom friend, class mate, Family relative called Sufi Tabassum a great poet of
Pakistan who died in mid eighties (if correct), my Nana jan who was a Sufi of silsila Nakshbandia, very active poet,
both of them won many awards, my Nana’s poetry and medals are still preserved in Amritsar’s Darbar Saheb museum, both of them had to skip Khalisa College
admission because of the Political unrest.
Anyway, the last I met Sufi Tabas was in Lahore in 1979,
as perhaps you know that all the Kashmiris have their one Nani, i.e. they are all linked with family relations, Sufi being very old, told us about his young age, and there he told us about a monthly published some thing to do with Tassawuf and that Iqbal was writing articles or editing, of course, Iqbal being his hero etc etc. I don’t know if you are able to get some old copies ? If some body know about it can please
contact us !! I contacted Amritsar’s Darbar museum and waiting for a reply (for my Nan’s poetry). I was disappointed when I heard that Indira’s assault had damaged the museum, I hope would be able to see my Nana’s Kalam once in my life time.
RAfay: would you by any chance know of a magazine published in the 1910-20’s from gujrat called SUFI RISALA, iqbal was its editor for one years or so…The publisher was a gentelman by the name of sufi mohammad din…of pind bahaudin..Any info would be much appreciated..