Unprecedented Achievements Of Ministry Of Science And Technology, Pakistan

Ministry of Science And Technology, has received unprecedented attention during the recent years through restructuring its departments

Unprecedented Achievements Of Ministry Of Science And Technology, Pakistan

And introducing a comprehensive road map for modernizing agriculture, health, education and alternative energy.

Ministry of Science And Technology, “The ministry has constituted four task forces in agriculture, health, education and alternative energy sectors with involvement of brilliant minds from academia and research institutions to come up with the innovative solutions to address the challenges being faced by the humanity”, said an official source of the ministry.

Soon after Chaudhry Fawad Hussain assumed the charge as minister, the ministry developed a Moon-Sighting Application for accurate determination of the birth of the moon and to check exact day of religious festivals.

It is part of its efforts to resolve this decades old issue and develop consensus on the issue of date of celebration of Eid which is solely determined by the moon-sighting.

The ministry also prepared a lunar calendar which proved its veracity on the Eid-ul-Fitr when it was celebrated on the date already predicted in the calendar. The date was also corroborated by the Ruet-e-Hilal Committee. The government, in recognition of prolific role of the ministry, notified representation of its member in the Ruet Committee.

Ministry of Science And Technology, Moon-sighting on the eve of Eid has always been an issue of disagreement at national level since the creation of Pakistan. Unfortunately, no preceding government has ever accorded priority to this national issue.

Another program initiated by the ministry for instilling interest and aptitude for science and technology in the young generation of Pakistan was of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) project which is first of its kind and was introduced in collaboration of the Higher Education Commission and renowned universities.

Under this project, the universities under the administrative control of this ministry including COMSATS, National University of Science and Technology and NUTECH will impart STEM education to 1500 schools of the private sector in the first phase from grade 6-9, following the international practices.

The annual budget of the ministry has also been raised by 600 per cent and the ministry has encouraged 50 mostly UK-based companies to join hands with it for establishing the science and technology sector on modern lines.

The ministry as the first civil organization has advanced the idea of establishment of civil-military interface, enabling mutual cooperation and combined efforts of both civil and military organizations.

Considering the direly needed to modernize agriculture sector which contributes enormously to the country’s economy, the ministry has done different agreements with the private sector for manufacturing drones which will be used for agricultural purposes including locust control.

Ministry of Science And Technology, The ministry has also entered into collaboration with a renowned company that manufactures drones of all kinds and with the Locust Control Centre to cope with the outbreak of locust that as played havoc with the agriculture production in Pakistan.

Another landmark initiative under the leadership of the federal minister, Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, was of establishment of bio-technological and herbal medicinal park in Jhelum which is underway. The site for the park has been identified and approved by the government of the Punjab and the proposal for the project has been sent to the Prime Minister for approval.

There were several laboratories which were rendered dormant due to the negligence of the successive government however, the ministry restored almost all the laboratories operating under its domain with the cooperation of China and Turkey.

When the first COVID-19 case was surfaced in Pakistan in the end of the February, Pakistan was running short of Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) and was looking towards other countries to import PPEs. The ministry, at that crucial time, took textile sector on board through extending cooperation for preparation of PPEs. The country once facing shortage of masks, is now in a position to export these with efforts of the ministry.

While to cope with the shortage of the sanitizers, Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) working under this ministry took lead by producing its own sanitizers to fill the gap between demand and supply gap.

Ministry of Science And Technology, Pakistan has become one of those countries that produce its own ventilators with the efforts of MoST and Ministry of Defence Production and Pakistan Engineering Council had sent dozens of models of ventilators to the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP). The model of the ventilators selected by DRAP has been sent for production and will be available in the market soon.

Soon after the pandemic spread, researchers team of National University of Science and Technology (NUST) took lead in developing disinfecting tele-operated robots and aerial spraying drones for decontamination of spaces, robust and cost-effective testing kits for detection of Coronavirus, high-quality sanitizers for microbial control, thermal monitoring camera to detect without touching, bilingual COVID-19 self-screening app and ventilators systems for short term stabilization of the patients.

As a part of measures to fight COVID-19, Pakistani researchers were also working on a 100 genome project to observe the genome from different coronavirus patients to identify the changes occurred in its structure.

This news was originally published at urdupoint.com