ISLAMABAD: Pakistan decided on Wednesday to resume operations of domestic flights and relax lockdown restrictions in the country to boost the dwindling economy and Prime Minister Imran Khan will make a formal announcement about it on Thursday in consultation with the provincial governments.

“This has been decided in principle in today’s meeting to resume operations of domestic flights on pubic demand,” Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Federal Minister for Aviation, said after a meeting of the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) in Islamabad.

The NCOC is an apex body comprising the country’s top civil and military leadership that formulates the national strategy to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar chairs its meetings.

The committee has also recommended to open inter-provincial transportation, retail outlets and operationalization of selective outpatient departments in Islamabad by easing lockdown restrictions.

Pakistan has been observing a partial nationwide lockdown since March 23 after COVID-19 cases started increasing rapidly in the country. It also shut down education institutes, established large quarantine centers and focused on tracing and testing of coronavirus suspects to stem the spread of the virus.

People have been pushing the government to open businesses to resume the economic activity in the country. According to the government’s own prediction, some 18.5 million people could be laid off in the wake of the pandemic.

In the NCOC meeting, it was decided to restart domestic flights connecting the country’s four main airports including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Quetta. Pakistan’s domestic flights remain suspended since March 25.

“We have also pleaded the case of small traders [to reopen their businesses] in the meeting,” the Aviation Minister said. “Prime Minister Imran Khan will make a final decision on all these recommendations tomorrow.”

The minister said the government had prepared some standard operating procedures (SOPs) for businesses to resume their activities and urged the public to cooperate.

Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah informed the participants of the meeting that the death rate of the coronavirus patients had increased due to the spike in local transmission of the virus, his media consultant, Rasheed Channa, told journalists in a statement.

“We should make decisions after thorough debate and consultations, and we need to show national unity in these testing times,” he quoted the chief minister as saying.

Pakistan has reported 22,550 coronavirus cases with 526 fatalities to date since February 26.

Prime Minister Imran Khan will chair a meeting of the National Coordination Committee (NCC) on Thursday to further discuss and approve the decisions made in the NCOC meeting with the input from all provincial governments.