September 8, 2003	Monday	Rajab 10, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 7: The nominees for the research productivity allowance 2003 of the federal ministry of science and technology are still waiting for the cash awards as the ministry has failed to provide funding in this regard, an official source told Dawn on Saturday.

A brainchild of Dr Attaur Rehman, the research productivity allowance was started in the year 2001 for the scientists actively involved in research work.

Under the scheme, for the first time around 200 scientists were awarded cash prizes in the year 2002, the source said, adding that it also worked as a catalyst for many others who started working actively to meet the criterion.

However, in 2003 the nominees for the awards kept on waiting till they came to know that the government had stopped funding for the scheme.

Originally, the scheme was planned for five years with a view to provide an incentive to those scientists who were involved in active research and contributed to the overall national development.

However, Dr Ata has said on a number of occasions that the scheme would continue as in a number of countries scientists received such rewards for their research work.

When the scheme was launched, the Pakistan Council of Science and Technology had bought data on Pakistani scientists from the Philadelphia-based International Scientific Information at a cost of $60,000 to know the contributions of the scientists to international journals over the years.

The source said the scheme had been received with lots of enthusiasm by scientists community in public sector universities.

Sources in the federal ministry of science told Dawn that some high officials in the prime minister’s secretariat had opposed the scheme and prevailed upon the finance ministry not to provide funds for the purpose.

They said since the ministry had remained without a minister and only recently the Higher Education Commission Chairman, Dr Ata, had been made incharge of the ministry, nobody could take up the case with the federal government for continuation of the allowance.

However, the sources added, Dr Ata was trying to revive the scheme but facing strong resistance from certain quarters.