Punjab to establish Agriculture, Food and Drug Testing Authority

Lahore : Punjab government has decided to establish Punjab Agriculture, Food and Drug Testing Authority (PAFDA) under the chairmanship of the Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif. This new authority will upgrade and coordinate the output of drug testing laboratory, Punjab Food Laboratory, pesticide laboratories and forensic sciences laboratories in a comprehensive manner.

This was disclosed in a meeting of steering committee of Punjab Agriculture, Food and Drug Testing Authority held at Civil Secretariat, today.

Additional Chief Secretary Punjab Shamail Ahmad Khawaja presided over the meeting. It was decided to table the draft law named Punjab Agriculture, Food and Drug Testing Authority Act-2016 before the Punjab Assembly during the current session on Wednesday 13^th April, 2016.

The meeting reviewed the recruitment process for new DG, PAFDA and hiring consultant firms of international repute to perform advisory role.

Additional Chief Secretary informed the meeting that Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif has allocated one billion rupees for uplift of the institutions meant for eradication of adulteration in daily use food items, life saving drugs, pesticides and chemical fertilizers besides allocating 500 million rupees to purchase analytic equipments for PAFDA. It will be an automated IT-based paperless regime at drug testing laboratory and PAFDA which will be according to international standards of US and British pharmacopoeia, Shamail Ahmad Khawaja informed the meeting.

Secretary Food Punjab Dr. Pervaiz Ahmad Khan, Secretary Agriculture Sheharyar Sultan, Secretary Primary Healthcare Ali Jan Khan, Members Planning & Development Board Punjab Dr. Shabana Haider and Agha Waqar Javed, Director General Forensic Sciences Agency Dr. Muhammad Ashraf Tahir, Additional Secretary (Tech) Secondary Health and Medical Education Dr. Salman Shahid, Additional Secretary Law Mohsin Abbas Syed, Additional Secretary Finance Mehmood Latif and Additional Secretary Welfare Mudasar Riaz Malik were present in the meeting.