A meeting of Subcommittee on Economic Clusters of the SDGs Task Force of the Provinical Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was held on 28th December, 2017. A presnetation was made by Prof M Subhan Qureshi, Chief Patron Dairy Science Park and Prof Ghazala Yasmeen, Vice Chancellor, Women University Mardan, on invitation of Mr Arif Yousaf, Special Assistant to the Chief Minister/Convener SDGs Task Force.
Pursuant to presentation of Mr Asad Ansari, KPESDMC, Prof M Subhan Qureshi suggested that the activities of KPEZDMC may be tailored with the applied research generated in the 32 universities of public and private sector in the province. This would help productive utilization of the natural resources available in the province. On the other hand the actions plan of KPEZDMC may be devised in a manner to absorb the huge skilled manpower graduating from the universities on annual basis. For this purpose an Academia-Industry Advisory Group may be established for providing guidelines for the KPEZDMC action plans.
Prof Qureshi referred to the collaboration of Dairy Science Park (DSP) and Women University Mardan (WUM), which can be utilized for developing Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Rashakai under CPEC, with special focus on entrepreneurship development. The Chair agreed with the proposal.
Recommendation-1: Collaboration among DSP, WUM and KPEZDMC may be established with special focus on establishing Special Economic Zone Rashakai under CPEC and implementing the MoU signed between Malaysian authorities and the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Prof M Subhan Qureshi made a PowerPoint presentation on establishment of Mardan TechnoPark in continuation to developments made under the DSP. DSP has been registered with the provincial government under Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860, authorizing it to sign MoUs with the relevant Departments for the projects. DSP has successfully held a series of international conferences and industrial exhibitions during November 2011, 2013 and 2015 at Peshawar and during November 2017 at Konya, Turkey, attended by 50+ Pakistani participants in addition to others from academicians and business communities in Turkey and other countries. Five International consultations were made with Sandia National Laboratories USA at Amsterdam, Dubai, Bangkok, Phuket and Colombo and a Biorisk Management (BRM) Curriculum was developed for life science degrees in various universities of Pakistan. Eight universities of the county, SMEDA and other organizations participated in the process. Mr Muzafar Said, Finance Minister and Mr Arif Yousaf, Special Assistant to the Chief Minister (Law) have been supervising these activities.
The Senior Minister, Local Government, Election and Rural Development Department chaired a lengthy meeting with the representatives of University of Agriculture Peshawar and private sector on 3-3-2016 wherein he agreed to the proposal of DSP on implementation of ADP project for establishing a Modern Slaughter House. Consequently, a summary for the Chief Secretary / Honorable Chief Minister for approval, was initiated. The same was supported by Additional Chief Secretary with remarks that the subject issue relates to Agriculture Department, so it was forwarded to them. However, it was returned by the Agriculture, Livestock and Cooperative Department with the following remarks: “The Agriculture, Livestock and Cooperative Department does not support the proposal of the Local Government Department”. A note was submitted by the Senior Minister via diary number 66 dated 1-8-2017 for issuance of directive to the Agriculture Department for constitution of Task Force on DSP. The Chief Minister marked the case to Secretary Agriculture for necessary action. However, notification of the Task Force is still awaited.
As DSP has proposed academia-industry linkages for entrepreneurship development, Biorisk management and production of Halal and hygienic food for local consumption and export, the issue relates to a number of departments and private sector organizations. The Vice Chancellor Women University Mardan has already attended the consultative process at Colombo and Konya and have signed MoU with DSP for BRM and Entrepreneurship Development. She has suggested allocation of 20 Kanal university land for TechnoPark Mardan under the collaboration.
Recommendation 2: Task Force on Dairy Science Park may be notified by Planning and Development Department. The Task Force on DSP would also oversee establishment of Mardan TechnoPark.
During presentation of Small Industries Development Board the house noted that the Board needs reforms for improving its capacity and responding to the issues faced by the provincial economy.
Recommendation 3: It was suggested that an MoU may be signed between SIDB, WUM and DSP for bringing reforms into the SIDB function as a model of Academia-Industry Linkages.