LAHORE, Jan 21: The revamped Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC) will create around 500 technical and non-technical jobs over the next several months as part of restructuring of the body to speed up work on cotton research.
The committee’s new board has already given approval for creation of two new posts for chief scientist and chief executive officer (CEO).
Both the jobs have been advertised, Shahzad Ali Khan, vice president of the PCCC, told Dawn on Monday.
He said the committee was facing shortage of scientists and other technical and non-technical staff due to ban on fresh hiring since 1994, stalling research on development of new cotton seed.
“We hope to fill most of the jobs by mid-April to completely restructure the committee and make it fully functional,” he said.
Khan, a spinner and farmer from Vehari who took over his assignment in July last year after the reorganisation of the PCCC board, said a leading chartered accountants firm had already drafted its report on restructuring of the committee.
The draft report, which has suggested reorganization of the PCCC on the pattern of either Indian or American model, would be presented before the PCCC board in its next meeting expected to be held in 10 days.
“Our objective is to turn the PCCC into a centre of excellence by completing its reorganisation in three months.”
Shahzad said, adding that cotton scientists would be motivated to undertake fresh research for developing high-yielding cotton varieties suitable to the country’s climate by giving them market-driven salaries and other incentives.
He said the new board had already achieved the financial turnaround of the organization ever since its reconstitution in July to include more representatives of spinners, farmers and ginners.
“When I took over the PCCC as its vice president, it did not have money to even pay salaries to its employees. The government had taken out Rs18 million from employees’ provident fund to pay salaries to employees.
“We have improved collection and recovered Rs268 million or 15 per cent higher than the target of Rs235 million in the last six months,” he said.
The PCCC now has created a surplus pool of Rs120 million after paying salaries and returning the money taken out from the employees’ fund.
“The issuance of RDA cell certificate by the textile ministry to the industry has been linked to production of an NOC from the PCCC to force the delinquent mills to pay their cotton cess dues,” he said. The RDA Cell certificate is required by the spinning mills to avail different incentives, like duty-free import of machinery and claim refunds.
Shahzad, also chairman of Aptma-Punjab, said he would transfer all his powers to the CEO for smooth functioning of the PCCC while chief scientist would maintain a liaison with international research bodies.
He said Pakistan is experiencing climatic changes and “we must work to develop and grow cotton seed varieties that need less water and still can give higher yield.
He said the PCCC would conduct research on BT cotton, hybrid seed and conventional seed and improve them to fit in the changing climatic conditions to improve output and quality of cotton in the country.
He said the new hybrid seed conducive for drought conditions would be developed to encourage cotton production in Balochistan.
He said that cotton production in Pakistan remained stagnant for over two decades and every year the industry was forced to import fibre to meet its requirements.
He said he wanted to raise domestic cotton output to 20 million bales by 2016 and 25 million bales by 2020 besides using satellite imagery to correct crop assessment.