As someone in Pakistan, I can tell you that it is a term but doesn't necessarily need to have been documented. If someone does something as a trade, you append -waala to their trade and call them by that.

So, if you see someone driving a tuk-tuk, or rickshaw as they're known in Pakistan, you refer to the driver as a rickshaw-waala. A chai seller becomes a chai-waala, a fruit seller becomes a fruit-waala, and so on.

Aerial Board of Control? :-)

(Kipling also wrote SF short stories, set in a universe with the aforementioned organization as a world government, for example "As Easy As A.B.C." (1912).)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_Board_of_Control

It is. See also Chaiwallah, Dhobiwallah etc

Seems so: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/punkahwallah#English

I remember hearing it for the first time watching reruns of It Ain't Half Hot Mum.