ISLAMABAD – The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has released the budgetof Rs 80 million for purchasing of equipments and induction of newemployees in the Pakistan Institute of Robotic Science (PIRS).According to the official sources on Wednesday, the released amount wouldbe utilized to purchase equipments for the national robotic centerheadquarter as well as its five attached centers. They said amount wouldalso be used to fill the vacancies of different cadres in all six roboticcenters.An amount of Rs 400 million was sought for the Robotic Center in Septemberlast year out of which80 million have been released now, the sources confirmed.Around 20 employees would be hired in the head quarters of the RoboticCenter established in the National University of Science and Technology(NUST).
However, in addition 10 employees would also be hired in every attachedcenters established in the five universities.The headquarters of the robotic center was established in the NUST, whileits attached five centers were working in universities including COMSATSUniversity Islamabad (CUI), Punjab University, CIIT University Peshawar,NED University Karachi, and Lahore Engineering University.Sharing further details the sources informed that under the RoboticProgramme initiated in the six universities, the research for developmentof agriculture sector was in progress in NUST under Artificial IntelligenceProgramme.Similarly, in the laboratory of Robotic Center of Punjab University, theresearch for the development of Transportation system was underway, aimingto cover areas regarding infrastructure, command, control, monitoring andsecurity.Under the programme, COMSATS University has been tasked for developmentregarding health sector. CUI is also working to cover all areas of CT Scan,X-ray, including development in medical sector and the projects of adventsthrough artificial intelligence.It is worth mentioning here that HEC had demanded input from alluniversities across the country to initiate this Robotic Science Programme,out of which 19 universities had shown interest in the programme.However, on the basis of merit, research paper and products, only sixuniversities were included in Robotic Programme.
