Science & Technology, attached departments.: Senate panel recommends four percent increase in budget

Expressing serious concern over the alarmingly low percentage of 0.00025 of GDP being spent on science and technology and its attached departments, a Senate panel has recommended increase in the annual budget to 4 percent of the GDP.
The Senate Standing Committee on Science and Technology, which met here with Senator Mushtaq Ahmed in the chair, on Tuesday expressed concern over the alarmingly low percentage of GDP being spent on the sector and called for reforms in this regard. The committee in the inaugural briefing was told that for the year 2017-18, the ministry was given a total of Rs 6.394 billion under the head of non-development budget and Rs 2.497 billion as development budget.
However, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Science and Technology had recently witnessed interesting moments when the committee offered its services for raising the issue of meagre budget allocation at high fora and stated that the current Rs 7 billion budget may be increased to Rs 10 billion for the ministry and its allied department. But former Secretary Science and Technology Fazal Abbas Maken declined the offer while saying that they lacked the capacity to absorb the funds due to human resources shortage.
It was further observed that the ministry and its allied departments lack capacity to utilize its funds efficiently, which is negatively affecting Research and Development (R&D) sector and hence the country has to rely on huge imports.
The Senate's committee observed that Pakistan is facing acute water scarcity, energy shortage and drastic climate changes and if urgent measures are not taken, the country will have to face disastrous consequences.
The chairman committee said that despite being a nuclear state the country is facing shortfall of electricity and has been declared water scarce country. The members of the committee were also of the view that the ministry and its attached departments should help spread awareness regarding new technologies available for saving water and other resources.
The committee was given a detailed briefing about the academic institutions working under the ministry including NUST and COMSATS, and other bodies including Pakistan Council for Science and Technology, Pakistan Science Foundation, National Institute of Oceanography, Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, Pakistan Council of Renewable Energy Technologies, Council for Working and Housing Research, Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority, and National Institute of Electronics, among others.
The committee called for developing more opportunities for spotting and grooming young scientists from educational institutions and having a ten years plan for the purpose as well as a ten years plan for reforms in the science and technology sector, human resource required, funds and budget and road map of strategic policy. The committee also directed the ministry to give details of all those eatable products that are being imported in the country and whether they are Halal or not. The committee also called for having a strategy to avoid misuse of 60 percent water in the agriculture sector, to make use of the excessive rainwater and to make seawater usable through desalination and reverse osmosis.
The ministry has proposed 33 projects of worth Rs 1.5 billion for 2018-19 under the PSDP. The officials of Planning Commission recently informed a parliamentary panel that Rs 2.3 billion were earmarked for the ministry but it failed to utilize the amount. The committee observed that the ministry always complained about shortage of funds, but it has failed to utilize the allocated money. The officials of the ministry said that some projects were started after a delay due to which the money could not be utilized.