February 5, 2006	Sunday	Muharram 6, 1427

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

HYDERABAD, Feb 4: People’s Party Parliamentarians MNA Abdul Ghani Talpur has said that millions of rupees allocated for development of Gorakh hill recreational spot have been misappropriated by officials.

In a statement faxed to Dawn here on Saturday, he said that he had raised the issue of Gorakh hill project in the National Assembly and the Sindh government had informed that an amount of Rs990 million had been allocated for the project.

He alleged that only a few millions had been spent on the project and substandard material was being used in development works.

He said only 55 kilometres of road had been constructed during 12 years.

He demanded that a committee of elected representatives should be appointed to evaluate the amount spent on the project and to see for itself the progress on the project.

He demanded that the NAB should be directed to probe into alleged misappropriation of funds.

He said that the land around the hill station should be auctioned through bids.

CONFERENCE: Organizing committee of the Sindh University on Saturday reviewed arrangements for holding a “three-day 9th national conference of plant scientists” and discussed in detail arrangements for delegates.

Plant scientists’ conference is being organized by the Institute of Botany, University of Sindh, in collaboration with the Pakistan Science Foundation and Pakistan Botanical Society from Feb 13, 2006, at the Allama I.I. Kazi campus Jamshoro.

Sindh University vice-chancellor Mazharul Haq Siddiqui, chaired the meeting.

The director of the Institute of Botany and secretary of organizing committee, Dr Tahir Rajput informed the meeting that more than 350 scholars and botanists from all over the country would participate in the conference.

He informed that the scrutiny committee had received about 300 research papers from various scholars which were being scrutinized by the committee.

The meeting decided that on the eve of conference, a gold medal and shield would be awarded to eminent scholar, Dr Abdul Ghaffar, in recognition of his services in the promotion of botany through research journal of “Pakistan Journal of Botany” since last 30 years as its chief editor.

The meeting decided to invite representatives of the Higher Education Commission, Pakistan Science Foundation, Pakistan Agriculture Research Council, forest department and vice-chancellors of all public sector universities of Sindh to attend the conference.

The vice-chancellor stressed upon members of organizing committee and conveners of various arrangements committees to make collective efforts for the success of the conference.

President of the Pakistan Botanical Society, Dr Hidayat Abro, Dr Baseer Ahmed and Dr Saleha Hasney also expressed their views.

The dean of the faculty of natural sciences Dr M.Y. Khuhawar, Registrar Dr Saeed Soomro, Saleh Rajar, Faiz Hingoro and Prof Mohammad Ilyas attended the meeting.