Islamabad: Mir Shahjahan Kethran Managing Director, Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation highlighted the need to focus on tourism ethics and environment tourism. He was speaking to media at the end of “Margalla Hills Clean up Operation” organized jointly by PTDC and the Adventure Academy here at Pir Sohawa. The Dispatch News Desk reported on Monday.
Over 200 Students from different universities, colleges and schools of Rawalpindi and Islamabad participated in the activity which started early in the morning from Trail No.3 of Margalla Hills and ended at Pir Sohawa after two hours hike. During the hike, students collected tons of garbage like shopping bags, empty bottles and wrappers, thrown on the trail by tourists. A special disposal truck of garbage was arranged by CDA at the end of the trail.
While joining the activity, chief guest Mir Shahjahan Kethran Managing Director, PTDC said that the purpose of Operation Cleanup was to highlight the importance of tourism ethic to keep the environment clean and green. Adventure Academy, led by its principal Saad Tariq Siddiqi, was highly appreciated preaching those tourism ethics to the next generation and implementing it through training programs organized under the supervision of a professional team like Manzoor Hussian Shah, Abdul Malik, Zaheer Chaudhry and Sohail Khan.
MD PTDC said that Islamabad is one of the most beautiful cities of the world and the enchanting scenes of Margalla Hills are the epitome of its beauty. He said that while enjoying natural beauty of these mountains, we should also strive to keep its environment clean by behaving like a responsible tourist. “I am happy that our younger generation participates vigorously in such healthy activates and I hope that visitors to Margalla Hills shall also follow them”, he added.
“We need to work hard collectively in order to maintain and transfer this natural beauty to our next generation”. He said that keeping these objectives in mind, PTDC and Adventure Academy, in collaboration with the educational institutions of Rawalpindi & Islamabad organized the “Margalla Clean-up Operation” so that the message is conveyed to the people that a clean environment represents a healthy and progressive society”. He further said that being a Muslim we should follow the Hadith: “cleanliness is part of faith”. He assured that despite its meager resources PTDC would continue supporting such healthy activities in future as well.
Students from a number of educational institutions like Frobel’s International School, OPF school, Grammar Public School, International Islamic University, Fatima Jinnah Women University, Comsats University, etc participated in the environmental cleanup operation. Among others both the general managers of PTDC, Mr. Ali Akbar Malik, Sheikh Fayyaz Ahmad, Manager Mr. Tayyab Mir and Dy. Manager Rana Mukhtar Ali were also present.
At the end of the ceremony MD, PTDC Mir Shahjahan Kethran distributed certificates among the participants of the cleanup Operation. The joint efforts of PTDC and Adventure Academy was highly appreciated by the participants and appealed for more awareness based events.
