ISLAMABAD: (Parliament Times) The Prime Minister of Pakistan Mr. Shahid Khaqan Abbassi has rejected the summary of CDA over the Capital Development Authority’s plan to build a housing society on the land of National Agricultural Research Council (NARC) in Islamabad. Nawafil were prayed at National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad on this decision.
Earlier, Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Tehreek –e-Insaf, progressive farmers and other prominent agriculture sector in Pakistan opposed CDA’s plan to build a residential colony on the vast agricultural land was tantamount to pushing the country towards hunger and poverty. All were agreed that over the last 40 years NARC had established state-of-the-art laboratories where about 400 agriculture scientists were busy making experiments on crops, vegetables, fruits and livestock to improve their production and quality and support the farmers. On the movement of this summary, they urged the prime minister to reject the CDA’s summary and issue it directives for issuance of the new lease agreement so that the scientists and other employees of the research council could work with a peace of mind.
Addressing to the gathering on the occassion, Dr. Yusuf Zafar, Chairman, PARC said that at a time when the country was passing through various crises, including power load-shedding, flash floods and law and order issues, it was duty of the government to focus on improvement of agriculture to meet the new challenge of food shortage. On this happy moment, he further added that PARC scientist will leave no stone unturned to develop the country in agriculture sector and said that farmers had been benefitting from the NARC research for improving the quality and quantity of the agricultural produce. He more said that 70 per cent of the country’s population relied on agriculture, but successive governments were least bothered to allocate sufficient budget for agricultural research.
