April 10, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 21, 1428

ISLAMABAD, April 9: Chairman Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (Parc) Dr Tusneem on Monday said that the Agricultural Research Endowment Fund (Aref) had been instrumental in financing high priority research projects and upgrade research facilities in the country.

According to a press release the Parc chairman was presiding over the 8th meeting of the board of directors of the Agricultural Linkages Programme (ALP) at Parc headquarters here on Monday.

The board is the governing body of ALP with responsibility for the funds programmes and its financial and managerial policies. It comprises the senior officials of the Planning and Development division, Minfal, provincial governments, the representative from the US Department of Agriculture/Agriculture Attach US Embassy Islamabad and the Member finance, Parc.

Dr Tusneem while opening the plenary session of the board of directors maintained that the ALP was the first and unique programme in the history of Parc and its implementation had been a great learning experience for all the stakeholders.

It may be recalled that the ALP was established under an agreement signed between the government and the USA in 1999 under which the latter provided 200,000 tons of wheat valued at $23.222 million as a grant to Pakistan.

The ECC of the cabinet approved the creation of Agriculture Research Endowment Fund (Aref) amounting to Rs1.3 billion and allowed Parc to utilise the income generated through this endowment to fund research projects all over the countrey.

Earlier, Shahida Jamil, the executive director ALP making a detailed presentation of the programme informed the meeting that since the creation of Aref, the Parc had launched two batches of ALP (1st in December, 2000 and 2nd in July, 2002) for funding the research projects under which 1,236 preliminary proposals were received, of which the board finally approved 257 projects costing Rs765.89 million.

At present 146 were in operation and 85 projects had been completed, she said and added that the 3rd batch of the ALP was announced in March 2006 for inviting preliminary proposals from the scientific community all over the country under the approved priority areas.

In response to the Parc’s call for 3rd batch, 599 concept papers were received, against which 160 were short-listed. Out of these 143 detailed projects were developed by the successful scientists while 44 were considered in the technical advisory committee meeting. Of these 17 projects were recommended for final approval by the board, she said.

Shahida Jamil informed the meeting that so far an amount of Rs630 million had been earned by investing the total approved cost of 85 completed and 146 on-ongoing projects.