MULTAN: The Muhammad Nawaz Sharif University of Agriculture is going to organise mango festivals in Multan, Lahore and Islamabad in July.

Talking to the media here on Wednesday, the varsity Vice-Chancellor Dr Asif Ali said although Pakistan was the sixth largest mango producer in the world; its total share of export at global level was only 3.1 per cent.

“A first three-day mango festival will be held in Multan from July 5 and then a two-day event in Lahore from July 10, while the last three-day festival will be organised in Islamabad from July 25.

Last year we organised a mango festival in Tashkent; the capital of Uzbekistan and now we are planning to hold a festival in Tajikistan next year in which mango growers from south Punjab will participate,” Dr Ali said.

He said foreign dignitaries and diplomats of various countries would also be invited to all the three festivals to be held here.

“The purpose of such festivals is to encourage the mango growers to increase their yield and to improve the quality of their produce to make it more export worthy,” the VC said.

He said the construction of the varsity’s academic block, administration block, residences for staff and hostels for both boys and girls had almost been completed.

He said about 500 acres barren varsity land had been leveled with the help of the university’s agricultural engineering wing out of which 250 acres were being used for cultivation of various crops.

He said an agriculture complex had also been established, where the students were doing their practical work.

The VC said that the number of the enrolled students when he joined the university was 900 which had now increased to 3,500 while the classes of M.Phil and PhD had also been started.

“Similarly, keeeping in view the industrial needs, new programmes of BBA (Agri Business) and BSc (Agro-Industrial) have been initiated. Currently, international research projects at cost of Rs74 million and national research projects of Rs240 million are underway, while six international and 26 national faculty programmes had been conducted,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2019