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LAHORE, July 20: Federal Minister for Science and Technology Dr Ataur Rahman has been paid Rs2 million research productivity allowance for the last financial year, say officials of the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology.
The minister claims 500 research papers and about 60 books to his credit.
But the researchers here, who have been hit by the criteria set to qualify for the allowance, have questioned the utility of the papers for the national economy.
They say the people directly engaged in strengthening the national industrial base are being deprived of the facility while those who are doing just theoretical work are being paid full reward.
Some officials of the federal research institutes told this scribe that the authorities, citing paucity of funds, have informed them that they will be paid PhD allowance from July 2002 and not from July 2001 as had been promised by the federal science minister.
Employees of provincial governments are being paid the allowance since December 2001.
PROJECTS: The Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) has Rs278 million worth research projects, reports APP.
“The council, now a financially viable institution, has in the pipeline others projects, worth Rs1 billion,” PCSIR Chairman Dr Anwarul Haq said on Saturday.
He was speaking at the foundation laying ceremony of STED project of low cost laboratory equipment and its commercialization, awarded by the National Commission for Science and Technology (NCST) programme of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
The project, worth Rs29.74 million, targets to produce and commercially market 1000 laboratory items in three years that would save foreign exchange being spent on these inventories currently imported for local usage.
Dr Haq said the production work has already commenced at the Lahore and Karachi laboratories of the PCSIR.
The council has also been commissioned to produce 56 hospital waste incinerators in about two years.
Sudan and Bahrain have sought the services of the PCSIR for various research purposes, the chairman said.
The appointment letters of 160 new officers in BS-17 to 19 were issued on Friday as regular government employees without adding any burden on the state funding.
However, he said that all employees who won’t deliver the goods must get ready for pack-up as the government has given standing directives to lay off the dead wood.
He said that like Fauji Foundation a PCSIR foundation must be established to fully benefit from the services of experienced scientists and to support them in turn.
The potential of the PCSIR must be realized as a leading research and development organization, Dr Haq who is a recipient of Pride of Performance and Sitara-i-Imtiaz said.
