October 11, 2007	Thursday	Ramazan 28, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Oct 10: Newly-elected office-bearers of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council Scientists Association (PARCSA) took oath of office here on Wednesday with a pledge to strive for improving working conditions in the country’s apex agricultural research body.

Faced with unprecedented managerial and administrative problems, the PARC in the recent years has seen mass exodus of its scientists in search of greener pastures abroad.

Low salaries, little chances of promotion and bleak future prospects were the reasons that compelled some budding but brilliant scientists to leave the country’s supreme research organ, an institution responsible for ensuring Pakistan’s food security.

The association has some uphill tasks ahead of it with the issue of the scientists’ salaries on the top. The effectiveness of the new office-bearers will be gauged from their ability to ensure job security to the PARC employees as a whole and scientists in particular during the ongoing “restructuring process” of the council.

The PARCSA is a forum with the objectives to solve social, scientific and administrative problems faced by scientists of the PARC. The forum is elected by the scientists for two consecutive years.

Member Planning Commission Dr Kausar Abdullah Malik administered oath to the newly-elected members.

Dr Syed Touqeer Abbas has taken over as the new president of the association. Dr Mohammad Aslam, Dr Mohammad Rafiq, Shahbaz Ahmad, Abdur Rab and Zahid Mahmood sworn in as vice-president, general-secretary, joint secretary, finance secretary and information secretary, respectively.

Daulat Baig, Abdul Wahhab, Ghulam Raza Sheikh and Dr Khalid Mahmood Aujla took the oath of the offices of the representatives of crop sciences, natural resources, animal sciences and social sciences, respectively,

Delivering his speech after taking the oath as the association’s president, Dr Touqeer Abbas discussed the problems faced by the PARC at length and the prospects after the restructuring of the organisation.

He said motivation was the single vital instrument required to bring about change.

“Organisations cannot excel without the prevalence of justice and equality,” he added. He was pointing towards the gap between the perks and privileges of scientists of PARC and that of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).

He said complete understanding between the management and PARC workers was essential for achieving harmony at the council, which in turn could promote a healthy environment for research. He asked his fellow scientists to develop PARC as a mission oriented organisation and not as mandate oriented one.

“We should always remain committed to the bare footed farmers,” he said.

Dr Kausar Abdullah Malik congratulated the elected body. He said the time had come for the scientists to play their vital role in the development of Pakistan’s agriculture sector.

The development of environment at the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) campus conducive for launching scientific research should be the mainstay of the PARCSA agenda of priorities. He said agricultural research was needed to be strengthened at provincial institutions as well.

He suggested that a scientists’ club must be established and that the scientific library at the PARC must be updated and scientists should ensure their presence there to update their knowledge and for productive research.

Dr Malik said Pakistani scientists should publish their research work in international journals so that scientific community might be able to get benefit of this research and Pakistan could get recognition in the world of science.

He said scientists should organise seminars and scientific community must attend these events based on scientific findings, experiments etc.