The Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research and President of PARC Board of Governors Mr. Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan presided over the 43rd Meeting of PARC BoG on Thursday at PARC, HQs, Islamabad. He hoped that all members will utilize their vision and experience in revitalizing agricultural research in the country. He also added that PARC has played a vital role towards improving the agriculture sector in various ways over the past. The PARC Board of Governor has approved PARC budget for the financial year 2018-19. According to break up figure, the budget included Rs. 2890.000 million for non-development with additional supplementary grant of Rs. 1286.028 million. Rs. 1190.800 million for Development side for public sector projects have been approved. In addition, the Board has also approved Rs. 104.771 million for MoUs and Rs. 276.585 million have been approved for Agriculture Linkage Program (ALP) of PARC. The Board of Governors has also approved Grant of Adhoc Relief Allowance-2018 @ Rs. 10% as notified by GoP w.e.f 01-07-2018, 10% increase in pension, 50% increase in House Rent allowance, 50% increase in hired house and 50% increased in Conveyance allowance w.e.f 01-07-2018. The budget was presented by Mr. Muhammad Tariq, Member (Finance), PARC. Mr. Sikandar Hayat Bosan, Federal Minister for M/o NFSR welcomed the members of the Board and also added that PARC has played a vital role towards improving the agriculture sector in various ways over the past. The Federal Minister in his speech lauded the efforts of PARC Scientists. The Federal Minister highlighted various PARC new interventions and projects. Our GDP is improving for the last two years; the GDP in 2014-15 was 0.02% whereas now the GDP is 3.8%. He also said that food security means when people have access to healthy and nutritious food. PARC also did a work on Foot & Mouth animal disease & Bird Flu, now Pakistan is Bird Flu Free Country after 2008. Mr. Fazal Abbas Maken, Federal Secretary for M/o National Food Security & Research, in his address said that it is expected that the food policy implementation will help in the promotion of value added food production while creating a new class of agricultural businesspersons. As a result the availability of diversified food products will increase that will help to improve the economic access of food to the socially deprived communities living in marginal and remote areas. The Board of Governors also discussed research priorities and various issues of agriculture sector which include production planning, cost of productions, crops scenario, policies for research, seed purity and quality, technologies, innovations and future planning. Dr. Yusuf Zafar T.I., Chairman, PARC informed the board about taking various steps for improvement of performance and efficiency of PARC system. Mr. Muhammad Tariq, Secretary PARC presented agenda items before the Members of Board of Governors. The meeting ended with vote of thanks. *****
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