09 October 2004	Saturday	23 Shaban 1425

PESHAWAR, Oct 8: The University of Peshawar plans to establish a botanical garden for the conservation of endangered species and research, sources told Dawn.

The university's old botanical garden was levelled in January for the construction of a centre of bio technology, which was inaugurated by NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah a few days back.

Sources said the abolition of the garden left the students of MSc, MPhil and PhD in botany with no facility for research. When the students observed a hunger strike after the uprooting of the garden and the issue was taken up by the media, some international universities offered to help develop another botanical garden, they said.

The university submitted a PC-I to the Higher Education Commission for the project when professors from the United States, China and Japan expressed willingness to extend technical support to the university in establishing the garden.

A professor of the botany department, University of Tokyo, two from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, China, and an agrostologist from the Utah State University, USA, have offered technical assistance and training to the staff of the garden.

The HEC recently allocated Rs37.8 million in the Public Sector Development Programme for the development of the garden with the understanding that the provincial government would provide land for the purpose.

"We have written to the NWFP government to provide us land at the Regi Lalma Scheme and it has responded positively," sources in the university said. The provincial government had asked the university to contact the patwari and visit the spot selected for the purpose, they said.

After fulfilling the legal requirements under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, the land and revenue department would forward the case to Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani for approval, they said.

The university is facing shortage of space as it has exhausted the available land by accommodating the University of Engineering and Technology, the Agriculture University and the Khyber Medical College on the campus.

The project needs 100 acres for a botanical garden, two green houses, a herbarium and other facilities. The establishment of the garden will take about two years and the recurring expenditure after its completion would amount to Rs1.558 million.

"We have selected a suitable place measuring 800 kanals in Regi Lalma Scheme for the project," sources said. The garden might provide better academic facilities to the students than the earlier one, a teacher said.

It would almost be a bio-diversity centre where research from intermediate to PhD level would be carried out and endangered plants, especially medicinal plants, would be preserved, the teacher said.

A botanical nursery, based on scientific grounds, would also be established, the teacher said and added that it would also propagate environment friendly plants and provide a recreational avenue for teachers and students of the university.