Faisalabad Research Forum held a meeting on environment issues, facing shortage of water and forest resources, increasing pollution and climate changes. The meeting was chaired by Commissioner Faisalabad Sardar Muhammad Akram Javed at New Senate Hall, University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF).
The meeting also approved establishing the Environment Protection Forum to address the issue by involving all stakeholders, industrials, scientists and civil society for the noble cause. In the discussion, setting up of Arfa Karim Information Technology Park also approved in order to promote the IT industry in the third largest city of the county.
UAF Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan, District Co-ordination Officer (DCO) Noor-ul-Amin Mengal, GC University Faisalabad Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Zakir Hussain, Additional Commissioner Mehar Shafqat Ullah Mushtaq, Faisalabad Development Authority Additional Director General Muhammad Ahmad Rajwana, Wasa Managing Director Zahid Aziz and Punjab Forest Research Institute Director Muhammad Afzal also spoke on the occasion. Speaking on the occasion, the Commissioner said that Pakistan was having only around 3 percent forest compared to international standards of 25 percent, aggravating the environmental issues. He also said that reduction in trees means increase in carbon dioxide and decrease in oxygen. He called for making joint efforts on the part of all stakeholders to address the issue.
He urged the scientists to produce techniques and innovations that would become the public friendly goods to severe the humanity. He was of the view that the mechanism is needed to achieve the targets of Production Possibility Curve by all institutions and sectors.
Discussing about the food security, he said that the climate changes are affecting our food production. The country is losing 30 to 40 percent in post harvest losses that can be tackled by providing awareness and transferring modern techniques among the farmers. He lauded the UAF for becoming first-ever university of the country in top 100 universities of the world. He also congratulated the UAF for developing UAF 11 oil seeds crop that produces more oil in less time.
Professor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan said that University research portfolio of external funded project had gone up manifolds in five years. Currently, the UAF is working on 265 external funded research projects worth Rs 2,085 million compared to 400 million five years ago. He said that it is need of the hour to work on ground water recharge to mitigate the issue.
The Vice Chancellor stressed the need to promote the drip irrigation, sprinkle irrigation and Precision Agriculture to save the natural resources. He added that the UAF is taking all possible steps to promote the technologies through its outreach programme. The UAF is providing assistance to the Punjab government in order to promote the biogas tube wells. The Punjab Government has taken hallmark scheme of distributing 0.1 million biogas tube wells among farmers. He said that the country mostly imports oil and pulses, if we adopt modern technologies for cultivation, we can save billions of rupees.
DCO Noorul-Amin said that as many as Rs 100 million had been earmarked for the plantation of city to make it more beautify and present aesthetic look. He said City government is also mapping out a comprehensive strategy to make it lush green as per pattern of Lahore City.
He said that the city had the huge potential that would be explored to work. He further said that Rs 50 million had been allocated for preserving the cultural heritage of the City. The District Administration would provide internship opportunity to UAF Horticulture students in order to make their participation in beatification of the city.
Professor Dr Zakir Hussain said that the ground Water Authority should be set up to deal with the issue of ground water. He also offered to provide sufficient land to establish the technology Park. He also suggested setting up the big dam as Pakistan is counted in the list of water scarce country. Per capita water availability has gone below 1000 cubic metre which is threshold level. He said that water scarcity was moving the country increase in poverty.
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