In the event of a loss of Air Quality, secure your own CM first

Lahore is preparing for winter as it has for a decade, with parents checking the air quality index before school and the smog war room reaching for its instruments. In the eighth most polluted city of the world last year, the annual average PM2.5 concentration was 88.9 micrograms per cubic metre, which is 17.8 times the WHO limit of 5. We brace for staggered school timings ending in closures, drones scanning for crop residue burning, restrictions and fines on older vehicles and pockets of respite from artificial rain. Every one of those measures (several sensible, some overdue, and many unfair) asks something of somebody. Meanwhile, what does Punjab’s most powerful office holder do? Make a trip to London aboard the government’s Gulfstream G500, a 2019 aircraft, to attend her daughter’s graduation ceremony.

It is against that ledger, and not the question of legality, that the use of the Punjab government’s aircraft is worth interrogating. The information minister has said the expenses were met personally. An adjournment motion moved in the Punjab Assembly puts the total estimated cost to the exchequer at around Rs12.5 million, including fuel, parking and related charges. An aviation expert calculated a one-way journey at $84,000 on the lower side. Whichever account is correct (and the receipts would........

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