Senate passes bill to set up space technology institute

The Senate on Wednesday passed the 'Institute of Space Technology Bill, 2010' with consensus to establish an institute for higher education in the field of Space Technology. The 43-clause bill was moved by Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar, which was passed by voice vote to provide education and scholarships besides making provision for research.
The President of Pakistan will be the Chancellor of the institute that would have the status of degree awarding institution. Opposition members, though they did not oppose the bill, proposed some amendments in it, which the Leader of the House assured to incorporate at later stage.
The House was informed that the country was in dire need of such an institution as most often the students are not provided opportunities to study abroad by international institutions. Leader of the House, Nayyar Hussain Bokhari, said that the legislation was due, as an ordinance had been issued way back to establish this institution, for the purpose of giving incentives to Pakistani experts abroad to come home and impart education to the students here.
Moreover, he said, it also aims at awarding degree to students to enable them to study further and contribute to technology development for overcoming the energy crisis and other problems. Leader of opposition Wasim Sajjad said that such institutions were needed for development in different areas relating to modern technology. "Developed nations often seem reluctant to provide such technologies to countries like us. Therefore, we need our own mechanism to prepare a force of technical experts", he added.
He said that European and other countries keep restricted to such technologies to themselves or reap benefits by selling the same but for Pakistan and other third world countries, they do not provide ample opportunities. He proposed to involve other Muslim countries to set up such institutions and engage best brains of the Muslim world for overall development.
Such institutions must be established in any Islamic country and Pakistan should take initiative and approach other Islamic as they have resources, he said. He called upon the government to incorporate his amendments as these were important.
Lauding the amendments made by Wasim Sajjad, Khurshid Ahmed proposed to make it mandatory that admission in this institution should be made on merit and their amendments shall be incorporated in the Bill. Leader of the House appreciated the members for not opposing the bill and assured them that the amendments would be incorporated by the government. Senate Deputy Chairman Jan Muhammad Jamali put the motion to the House and the bill was passed unanimously.