Our Correspondent
Faisalabad
Secretary Higher Education Department Punjab Zulfiqar Ahmad Ghuman on Friday said that agriculture scientists should come up with the viable solutions to fight locust attack.
He visited the University of Agriculture Faisalabad and met UAF Vice Chancellor Dr Muhammad Ashraf. During the meeting Commissioner Faisalabad Ishrat Ali, and agricultural experts of Entomology Department including Dr Jalal Arif, Dr Waseem Akram, Dr Amir Rasul, Dr Sagheer and others were also present.
He said: ‘We have to pace up our efforts to fight such challenges of locust attack and increase per acre productivity.’
He said that scientists from life science across the country should make the collaborated efforts on vector management to fight the vector borne diseases including dengue.
UAV VC Dr Muhammad Ashraf said that the government had set up a consortium of the agricultural universities, Food Security Ministry, Agriculture Department NDMA, and PDMA others to work jointly on the locust.
He said that UAF had designed a new sprayer for locust that could spell the spray-solution up to 50 feet high. He said that UAF had recently set-up a research center for locust control.
Commissioner Ishrat Ali said that university should provide a training to use digital resources in order to make our research work at par with international standards. He said: ‘We have to conduct the problem solving research for the industry.’
Meanwhile, it is learnt that a high-level meeting was held here Friday at Commissioner Office Bahawalpur under the chair of Provincial Secretary for Labour Punjab Muhammad Aamir Jaan and Commissioner Bahawalpur Division Asif Iqbal Chaudhry.
The meeting discussed measures against coronavirus, wheat procurement, price control and steps taken against locust attack in Bahawalpur division.
The meeting was told that different government buildings were turned into quarantine centres with a capacity of keeping 2000 persons in addition to 871 rooms of six hostels of the Islamia University of Bahawalpur. A 100-bed field hospital has been set up at Government Degree College for Special Education for treatment of coronavirus patients.
