LAHORE    -    Punjab University (PU) Vice Chancellor (VC) Prof Niaz Ahmad Akhtar said the current university administration was encouraging such initiatives to introduce modern fish farming that would help boost the relevant industries. This was stated by him during an address to a meeting of fisheries and aquaculture industry stakeholders organised by Institute of Zoology. Pro Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Saleem Mazhar, Dean Prof Dr Javed Iqbal Qazi, Director ORIC Prof Dr Asmatullah, Prof Dr Noor Khan, Director General Fisheries Sikender Hayat, CEO Fisheries Development Board Junaid Watto, fish feed manufacturers and progressive fish farmers from all over Pakistan participated. In the meeting, a working Group of PU-Industry Fisheries and Aquaculture was constituted. Addressing the participants of meeting, Prof Niaz Ahmed said that the curriculum regarding fisheries was being upgraded according to the needs of the fish market so that the graduates could easily get jobs and the industry could be provided manpower as per their requirement. He said that the subject of future academic research in this regard should be finalized after consultation with the companies so that positive progress could be made in solving the problems of the industry.

Dr Noor Khan gave detailed presentation on need for constituting this group and also proposed establishing Centre of Fisheries & Aquaculture at PU. Dr Sikender Hayat also gave presentation and shared ongoing research and development projects and demanded trained fisheries graduates to be inducted in these projects. Mr Junaid Wattoo also emphasized on the need of producing trained manpower which is the mandate of universities. Prof Saleem Mazhar, Prof Javed Iqbal and Prof Asmatullah also lauded the initiative and said that this would bridge gap between the academia and industry in the field which was missing earlier. Representing the bioflock industry, Dr Raees Ahmed, Director, Smart Bioflock Technologies, said that unless the research work on fish farming in educational institutions is promoted, the problems of the industry could not be solved.

He thanked all the participants including PU VC and Prof Noor Khan and said that such meetings should be continued so that exports of products from the industry could be started at the earliest.

The working group includes more than 30 professionals from across Pakistan, including fish farmers, feed makers, industry representatives and Fisheries Department representatives.