ISLAMABAD: The future of National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) will finally be decided next Thursday (August 6), when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will take up the issue at a high-level meeting, official sources told Dawn on Saturday.

The meeting has been called by the prime minister in response to the letter written to him by Minister for National Food Security and Research, Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan, in which he had urged the prime minister to turn down the summary moved by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to convert the NARC land into a mammoth housing scheme spreading over 1250 acres of land currently being used for research in agriculture.

Agricultural scientists have termed CDA’s proposal as ‘economic suicide’. The reason presented by the CDA to the prime minister to convert the land into a housing scheme is simple that NARC has not paid the lease money and it would not renew the lease.

The prime minister’s office has informed Sikandar Hayat Bosan, Secretary Seerat Asghar Jaura, PARC Chairman Dr Iftikhar Ahmad, NARC Director-General Dr Mohammad Azeem and leading agricultural scientists to present a comprehensive presentation to the prime minister to enable him to take final decision on the summary presented by the CDA.

The prime minister’s office has particularly instructed the presentation should focus on the achievements of NARC over the past five years in terms of developing new technologies leading to food security.

Sources said that none of the CDA official has been asked by the prime minister’s office to attend the meeting.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2015

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