RAWALPINDI: The Pir Mehar Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi (PMAS-AAUR) will be establishing campuses in Mandra and Murree, according to the varsity’s Vice Chancellor Dr Rai Niaz Ahmed.

Talking to a meeting of the university’s academic council on Tuesday, Dr Ahmed said: “An agriculture engineering campus will be established in Mandra and a mountain agriculture campus will be established in Murree. The university has already set up a veterinary sciences campus in Khushab and an agricultural sciences campus in Attock.”

Dr Ahmed was chairing the 56th PMAS-AAUR academic council at the main campus at Shamsabad, which was attended by senior faculty members, teaching heads, librarians, registrars, deans of faculties, directors of institutes and the controller examinations.

He said that the focus of the university’s research has been shifted to identifying and solving local problems and introducing cutting edge technology in the agricultural sector.

During the meeting, the council agreed that students in every department, especially those studying management sciences and information technology, will have to take on agriculture course and will have to undertake a practical project for solving the problems of the agricultural sector as part of the degrees.

Participants of the meeting agreed that the decision will help advance the agriculture sector in the country.

The vice chancellor said the varsity stood at 152nd position in the world in a ranking of agriculture and forestry universities from 2013 till the present conducted by World Universities Ranking.

According to a ranking by the International Green Matrix in 2015, PMAS-AAUR was named the second best university in Pakistan, he said.

Dr Ahmed said that PMAS-AAUR is contributing to the improvement of the national agricultural economy as its mandate and said training sessions for farmers in the Pak-Korea Capacity Building Centre and the launch of the New Village Movement Project in Potohar were part of these efforts.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2016