ISLAMABAD, Feb 26: The Pakistan Telecommunications Company (PTCL) Research and Development Fund Committee on Thursday approved Rs40 million for Thematic Research Grants Programme in the current fiscal year.

The approval was given at the 19th meeting of the committee presided over by Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari. The programme will be initiated under the PTCL R&D Fund and its objective is to boost research and development at a small level in the fields of information technology and telecommunications.

The approval is in addition to an earlier endorsement of 13 different projects worth Rs13.4 million. An announcement made by the IT ministry said the Rs40 million allocation for the scheme was for the current fiscal year.

The programme will have three competitive rounds of funding each year (once every four months) and will distribute 12 research grants in each round (six grants up to Rs1 million and six up to Rs2 million).

Under the programme, each round will have one theme from IT and one theme from the area of telecommunications. The first round of competition will be held within the next four months.

The themes of first round selected for funding include ITU compliant packet networks and open source software. Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari said the purpose of the research grants scheme was to encourage high-level scientific research projects in the country.