Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Khurshid Shah assured engineers and scientists of monetary grants for research if they bring proposals which would solve the energy crisis and help speed the development of the country.
He was speaking as the chief guest at a dinner hosted by Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) at a local hotel. PEC’s Vice Chairmen from Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan , Khyber Pakhtunkhwa along with members of the scientific diaspora were in attendance. The minister said that the country needed engineers to steer it out of the energy crisis. He advised the engineers to research on methods to indigenously exploit and extract wind, solar and coal energies. He said that the government envisions generating power from coal. He said that Thar coal reserves were one of the largest coal reserves of the world and had the potential to end Pakistan’s energy woes. He said that in the last four and a half years, revenue collection jumped from Rs 900 billion to Rs 1900 billion. He said that PPP government was the first government of the country which returned 1.2 billion dollars against the loan it obtained from World Bank. He added that foreign remittances increased from 5.2 billion to 13 billion and Pakistani nationals employed abroad increased from 250,000 to 400,000.