LAHORE, Jan 2: Authorities in the PCSIR laboratories are planning to establish at least two new centres in the province despite the fact that its old centres are facing dearth of scientists and technologists.

The new centres are proposed to be set up in Gujranwala and Sialkot. PCSIR officials said around 50 senior scientists had retired or resigned during the last two and-a-half years, but not a single new recruitment had been made during this period, causing a serious shortage of researchers.

"When the authorities are unable to meet shortfall of experts at the already established centres then why they are going for opening new ones," they wondered. They said new buildings were also being erected at the Lahore centre of the PCSIR, though the existing offices were awaiting officials to utilize them.

They regretted that the council was one of the few scientific research institutions in the country, but it was being run non-seriously as it was being looked after by an interim chairman.

Alleging inappropriate use of funds in the institution, they claimed that Rs100 million had been earmarked last year for repairs of sensitive and expensive equipment lying idle for quite some time but the money was used for repairing minor instruments. Rectification of sensitive machines like NMR, Electron pro-Microscope, Amino Acid Analyser and ICP was ignored, they added.