ISLAMABAD, Sept 5: The board of governors (BoG) of the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) here on Wednesday approved Rs790 million budget for the financial year 2007-08, saying the main thrust of the budget was on coping with the issue of brain drain.

“An effort has been made in this budget to help the country’s supreme agricultural research body cope with the issues of brain drain and lack of funds for research,” a press release said.

But a cursory look at the budget components shows that the BoG was mostly concerned with the issue of perks and privileges of the staff and the administrative cost instead of taking any major research initiative vital for the food security of a nation of over 160 million people.

A bigger chunk of the budget (Rs552.93 million) would go to the ‘establishment’ expenditures including all the non- development activities like salaries of the staff, etc., while less than one-third of the budget (Rs237 million) would be consumed by new research projects.

Sources said that historically PARC budgets and its components had not been in consonance with international norms. Worldwide, over 80 per cent of research bodies’ budgets go to research activities.

The PARC officials are well aware of the fact and have also informed the government that every year a big proportion of the budget is consumed by salaries and house rents of the staff. They have on many occasions also demanded an increase in the overall allocations of the council to a level where 60 per cent of the budget would go to research.

However, so far, the government has failed to resolve this issue as more and more scientists from PARC are moving abroad in search of greener pastures.

The 28th BoG meeting, which approved the budget unanimously, was headed by federal minister for food, agriculture and livestock Sikandar Hayat Bosan.

The minister highlighted the problems being faced by the scientists and other employees of PARC. He invited the attention of the board members towards these problems and said in spite of the progress on implementation of the reform agenda, PARC scientists continued to suffer from the intractable issues relating to pension and pay fixation which, he said, had resulted from audit objections on decisions taken by the competent authority in PARC/Minfal as per the council’s regulations 1984.

“Nearly half of the total PARC employees are affected by this problem leading to demoralisation of scientists and the management at all levels,” he added.

Mr Bosan called upon the board members to assist PARC management in settlement of pension and pay fixation cases in accordance with rules and regulations.