LAHORE: The establishment of Tilapia Research Center by Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries Department has been delayed due to non-allocation of funds whereas the delay is causing a loss of millions of rupees, Pakistan Today learnt on Saturday.
Well established sources in the forest department informed that the establishment of said centre was approved in July 2017 and was planned to be completed in 2020 whereas an amount of Rs144.694 million was approved for the project but only Rs61.478 million were utilised till the end of July 2019, meaning that the project utilised 42 per cent of funds.
Sources also informed that the funds for 2017-18 were released as per the allocation but during the second year (2018-19) the project faced the short funding of Rs.48.236 million.
The sources also informed that the main objective of the establishment of the center was to conduct the studies on reproductive physiology, sex reversal techniques but due to the incomplete civil works, laboratory, hatchery building, earthen broodstock ponds the target could not be achieved.
Similarly, the work regarding the development of innovative techniques for sex reversal and culture of Tilapia species could not start due to incomplete infrastructural facilities.
Only three seminars under the project were conducted during 2018-19 for the demonstration of techniques to the private fish farmers whereas three seminars are planned to be conducted during 2019-20.
Sources also revealed, “The staff recruited for the project was not given tasks to justify their services. The tilapia seed and feed were procured during last year (2017-18) whereas the infrastructure is still incomplete and the slow progress is also discouraging. There was litigation in the court against the project site. All the procured items as per PC-I were dumped in a room and the fate of their utility seems still unknown.”
Sources further revealed, “It was the department’s negligence that they did not inform about the site issue on time. There is a need to release the funds under the capital head as per financial phasing of the PC-I for timely completion and functioning of the project”.
While talking to Pakistan Today the deputy director of department Sajid Mehmood said, “The project is facing a shortage of funds. We received only 50 per cent funds of the total approved amount. When the new government came, they had stopped most of the development schemes including this project”.
