ISLAMABAD, Aug 31: Senate standing committee on agriculture accused the top management of Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) of fudging the figures to paint a rosy picture of research achievements while ground realities belied such claims.

Referring to the presentation of PARC Chairman Dr Badruddin Soomro, in which he claimed billions were earned for the economy through research activities of PARC, Dr Azizullah Satakzai said: "It is zero plus zero. As far as we know none of the projects have delivered any results for the farmers."

The committee members said PARC catered to the needs of the multinational companies instead of farmers. Senator Satakzai also pointed out non-existence of some PARC projects in Balochistan as earlier claimed by the PARC chairman.

Senator Pari Gul Agha also pointed out the non-serious attitude of the officials who she said were sleeping as Dr Soomro gave a lengthy power-point presentation claiming many successes of PARC during the last 20 years.

She also took exception to the remarks of Dr Soomro when he expressed his inability to deliver results due to certain constraints. Earlier, as the senators asked robing questions about PARC's claims of successes, Dr Soomro said, "My hands are tied and I can't do much."

The committee chairman, Senator Amjad Abbas Qureshi, and members also questioned the constantly growing gap between expenditures of administration and reduced allocations for research.

"There is no use of this organization if it is not doing enough research," said a senator while referring to decrease in research activities. The senators also asked the PARC chairman to explain the extraordinary increase in medical bills of PARC and asked sarcastically if the increase in medical bills was proportional to higher education levels of employees in PARC.

PARC has shown Rs65 million as medical expenditures during the last two years. Dr Soomro could not give a satisfactory response to a question about giving advance money to an Islamabad-based chemist and only said it was in accordance with rules.

Secretary agriculture Ismail Qureshi, while acknowledging the problems in PARC, said the government was trying to allocate increased funding to the organization so that its research activities did not suffer. He said the matter of medical expenditure was also taken up by the ministry.