ISLAMABAD, June 24: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has approved a scheme worth Rs25 million to establish Date Palm Research Institute at Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur.

In this regard a project costing about Rs25 million has been approved in the Departmental Development Working Party (DDWP) meeting recently held at the HEC headquarters, said an official statement.

The major objective of the scheme is not only to strengthen and intensify research programmes on tissue culture techniques on date palms but also establish protocol to obtain disease free, higher yield and better quality plants.

It would also plan and follow up research programmes for better utilization of the available local resources, solve problems of growers, processing and marketing.

The scheme aims at developing technology and data bank for the assemblage, preservation and development of the whole range of existing germ palms and analyzing and implementing integrated research programmes on soil, fertilization, tissue analysis and irrigation requirements.

Through the scheme the research programmes would be carried out on post-harvest technology and physiology to improve handling and storage of dates to reduce losses. It would also improve and upgrade production and processing practices to help reduce cost of production in the date palm industry.

It is hoped that the scheme would promote the production of bi-product of the fruit and carry out research programmes on post-harvest technology and physiology to improve handling and storage of dates to reduce losses.

The scheme aims at saving the soluble portion of Chhuhara waste for the production of Ethanol, single cell protein, amino acids, enzymes and antibiotics, which is in million tons and would plan to implement and coordinate training and extension programmes on production, processing and marketing of dates.

It is hoped that the project will provide research facilities in the field of date palm, the main crop of the area. It is also hoped that a large number of local population will benefit from the project and bring about significant qualitative improvement at higher education level and the main crop of nine districts i.e. Khairpur, Sukkur, Ghotaki, Nauthahro Feroze, Nawabshah, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Larkana and Dadu which are date palm would be benefited by the scheme. This achievement would also be capable of achieving the socio-economic objectives of the country.