ABBOTTABAD, May 17: Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) has made significant achievements in the fields of medicine, apart from its services to national defence, agriculture, industry and power generation.

The PAEC has earned great recognition for these exemplary services to the people of Pakistan and the commission deserves congratulations in this respect, said Governor NWFP, Lt. Gen (retd) Syed Iftakhar Hussain Shah.

Inaugurating PAEC's Institute of Nuclear Medicine Oncology & Radiotherapy, (INOR) Abbottabad here on Monday, he said the inauguration of INOR rightly symbolises what nuclear technology can do to alleviate the pain and misery of ailing humanity.

The governor said the prime role of science and technology for the development of a progressive society has been established and this fact needs no further elaboration. These knowledge resources must be utilized for realizing basic human facilities like access to safe drinking water, health, for raising literacy and poverty alleviation.

He said it is heartening to note that PAEC is actively engaged in establishing cancer hospitals in relatively smaller and remote areas of the country and is making these facilities available to more people.

This is the 2nd such PAEC hospital in the NWFP, he said and assured full support to PAEC for these noble activities. The governor praised the PAEC's agriculture research centre's role in evolving varieties of wheat and other crops which have contributed significantly to the agriculture sector.

In this context the governor made special mention of other technologies like biological control of pests which will enhance fruit production without using pesticides.

Earlier, in his welcome address, Chairman PAEC, Parvez Butt said PAEC is a multi-disciplinary organization engaged in national defence, production of pollution-free electricity, education and training, international research, mineral development, agriculture and health-related fields.

Butt said his organization has evolved technologies for reducing the use of insecticides by introducing biological pest control whereby friendly insects are raised to destroy the harmful insects.

The use of these technologies will result in significant savings and will protect the environmental from damage as pesticides cause severe damage to the environment and are very expensive to import, he added.

Another effort in this direction is the invention of fruit fly traps by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Peshawar. These fruit fly traps are available at Rs 30 per unit and are very effective in eliminating flies which are harmful to fruit and which otherwise are required to be eliminated through the use of environment-damaging pesticides.

"PAEC is holding a workshop in NWFP to demonstrate to the farmers the use of these flytraps," the chairman explained. Sterilisation of pests is another technique so that the use of pesticides is avoided, and PAEC is working with international collaboration.

Use of these non-injurious techniques to grow fruits is essential as in the WTO regime, no fruit raised with the use of traditional harmful insecticides will be allowed. -APP