KARACHI, July 7: A botanical garden project was formally kicked-off on the University of Karachi campus on Thursday, when vice-chancellor, Dr Pirzada A Qasim, planted a Royal Palm sapling in the presence of senior faculty members. According to a senior official, the garden, first of its kind in the country, spread over an area of 30 acres will be completed at a cost of Rs29 million in two years’ time and will have unique, exotic and wild plants.

The Higher Education Commission has agreed to finance for the garden, which will be part of the teaching leading to masters’ degree and will be an integral part of the research for MPhil and PhD programmes. The garden would cover an area starting at right side of the Silver Jubilee gate.

Dr Mohammad Qaiser, the Dean of Science faculty of the university told Dawn that apart from the educational aspects, the garden would have a direct relevance to environmental awareness, reduction of pollution, promotion of certain industries, agriculture, forestry, public health and plant introduction.

We have planned to shift endangered wild species available in Sindh and Balochistan to the KU’s botanical garden, he added, saying that his team of scientists have already identified about 15 species for conservation.

It was learnt that a few greenhouses of alpine and sub-alpine flora, temperate flora and tropical flora of different heights would be established to ensure survival of certain plants in Karachi. The KU is likely to have linkage with other important botanical gardens in the world.

In a related briefing given to the vice-chancellor, Dr Qaiser and the horticulturist Haider Abbas said that species from cooler regions of Pakistan would also be planted in the controlled environment structures. The botanical garden will not only serve the students and teachers but it will also be accessible to public for visiting and enjoying the natural beauty, the VC was informed.

Dr Pirzada pointed out to the organizers that Karachi was faced with shortage of drinking water and as such it would be appropriate to use treated wastewater for the watering of the garden as sustainable a solution.

He said that throughout the world, these types of gardens were not only designed for aesthetic and research purposes but they also served as a means of sustainable source of income/funds generation for their maintenance.

In the meantime, the vice-chancellor on Thursday also laid the foundation stone of a Herbarium, a two storey building of 10,000 sq-ft covered area, where, after its completion, complete information of plants, with scientific names, date and area of collection, research status would be available.

According to Dean of Sciences, Department of Botany has already published several volumes of the Flora of Pakistan containing information about 6,000 identified plants of Pakistan. A herbarium in the botany department has samples of more than 125,000 plants grown in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, India and several other countries.

The vice-chancellor also laid the foundation stone of a combined building for the offices of Dean Faculty of Science and Directorate of Evening Programme.