KARACHI: Pakistan’s most prestigious scientific research institution in the public sector, the Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR), has been in desperate financial straits since the federal government withdrew from it the right to spend its self-generated income on research, it emerged yesterday.
According to sources, the test and analysis work that has been the laboratory’s only income generating resources for decades have literally come to a standstill since March as there is no money to buy chemicals or repair equipment.
The financial crisis, they say, have not only affected current employees who were being paid salaries after months of delay but have also hit pensioners who have not been paid a single penny by the federal government for three months.
“The PCSIR, like other public sector research institutions in the country, has been facing a monetary crunch for almost eight years as the federal government has not provided any funds for research and development projects to the institution.
“Instead of increasing funds and paying salaries in time, the government has dealt another blow to the institution by depriving it of its self-generated amount that used to help the institution pay utility bills in time, repair equipment and buy chemicals,” said a high-ranking official in the PCSIR.
He said the officials in Islamabad had been making an unrealistic demand for some time that they wanted to pay pensioners and employees from the laboratory’s meagre self-generated amount.
“It makes me sad when I see the institution in which scientists like me had invested their lives has now been reduced to a post office,” said a former PCSIR scientist. INTERNEWS
