THERE is a need for establishing in Faisalabad a sub-campus of Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS), Islamabad.

In terms of population, Faisalabad is Pakistan’s third largest city and is also the second largest industrial city of the country. As a seat of higher education it also offers employment opportunities to about 20 million people in central Punjab.

Every year, quite a large number of science and engineering graduates apply for admissions to master’s and doctoral courses in PIEAS, Islamabad, and in the Karachi Institute of Nuclear Power Engineering, but only a fraction of the total number of aspiring applicants gets admission to these two nuclear institutes. These two institutes are the only ones of their kind in the country, and both have a limited number of seats. The country, therefore, needs a third such institute.

The concerned authorities should take notice of this situation and establish one more institute of nuclear engineering and applied sciences in Faisalabad — or in any other city they deem fit. Faisalabad could be a better choice, because it already houses the Nuclear Institute of Agriculture and Biology (NIAB) and the National Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE).

These well-furnished laboratories and the scientists working in the two institutes, besides the Punjab Institute of Nuclear Medicine (PINUM), can prove to be a fertile ground for doctoral research in agricultural sciences, genetic engineering, nuclear medicine, and radioisotope diagnostic and therapeutic studies.

Nuclear technology is such a discipline that it brings in its wake advancement in other areas of science and technology essential for industrial progress and economic growth.

I, therefore, request the authorities concerned to establish a PIEAS sub-campus at Faisalabad.

Dr Muhammad Amin
Faisalabad

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2020