LAHORE: As many as 1,722 graduates were awarded degrees at the 13th convocation of the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) on Wednesday.

Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman was the chief guest at the convocation while Punjab Minister for Food and Energy Sardar Hasnain Bahadur Dreshak, Livestock Secretary Muhammad Malik Bhulla, UVAS Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Nasim Ahmad, faculty members, representatives from dairy, poultry, meat, food and pharmaceutical industries were present.

As many as 1,722 graduates were conferred degrees and 65 position-holders awarded medals -- 44 were PhDs, 528 MPhil, 286 DVMs, 632 BS (Hons), 91 Pharm-D, 34 Doctors of Nutrition and Dietetics, 21 MBAs, 9 MBA Executive and 77 BBA (Hons).

Mr Rehman urged the students to work hard, serve humanity, be entrepreneurs/job-providers instead of becoming job-seekers. He said the livestock sector would have a potential to play a key role in ensuring food security and poverty alleviation.

He said the government was taking revolutionary steps for the uplift of the livestock sector and focusing on provision of safe and healthy livestock products to consumers. He said the government was also focusing on youth entrepreneurship and had launched various initiatives and providing many opportunities for starting their own business.

The chancellor, along with the UVAS vice chancellor, gave away degrees to PhD scholars and medals to the position-winning graduates.

Prof Ahmad said the university had been facing financial problems because the government had drastically reduced funding. He said the low budget was causing issues to the campuses and the ban on recruitments was also creating human resource deficiency on the campus. He requested the chancellor to intervene to address these issues.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2022