ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary panel on Tuesday asked the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) and Shah Abdul Latif University (SALU), Khairpur, to prepare a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for establishing a state-of-the-art research centre in Khairpur district to enhance the production and quality of dates.
A meeting of the sub-committee of the Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research, convened under the chairmanship of Syed Javed Ali Shah Jillani, reviewed the progress of the proposed research center for dates in District Khairpur, a joint venture between PARC and SALU.
The PARChad planned to establish a post-harvest research institute in Khairpur, given the potential for research on horticultural crops. Khairpur has great potential for important crops and fruits, including bananas, mangoes, strawberries, tomatoes, and potatoes.
The meeting decided that the members of the sub-committee will visit the site of the establishment research centre. The committee will hold its next meeting at Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur. The meeting directed both partners to sit together and work out an MoU for setting up the research centre. The panel will review the proposed MoU in the next meeting, Jillani said.
He said that after a complete review of the MoU, the sub-committee will present its report to the main committee for final approval of the MoU.
The committee was informed that the only institute inKhairpur is the Date Palm Research Institute at Shah Abdul Latif University, where research is carried out to produce date palm plantlets free of disease through a tissue culture process.
The meeting was attended by MNA Syed Abrar Ali Shah, Zulfiqar Ali Behan, Chairman of the PARC Dr Murtaza Hassan Andrabi, the additional secretary of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFS&R), and other senior officials.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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