Joint venture launched on tobacco crop

PESHAWAR:

University of Engineering Technology (UET) Peshawar and Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB) and National Center for Big Data and Cloud Computing (NCBC) have entered into a collaboration, where they will work together on ‘detection and estimation of tobacco crop through geographic image analysis’.

The documents were endorsed by Chief Statistical Officer PTB, Dr Waqas Gilani and Director ORIC Dr Nasraminallah, in presence of Vice Chancellor UET Professor Dr Iftikhar Hussain.

Secretary PTB Dr Qaizar Ahmed said that PTB would support the NCBC to identify fields of tobacco in their respective regions through GPS and assist NCBC in sharing the statistical tobacco crop and yield related information to enhance the NCBC system for improved Tobacco analysis.

NCBC, as per UET consultancy policy will provide services in detection of tobacco fields, through advanced geographic image analysis with NCBC's state of the art Remote Sensing Technologies.

Professor Dr Iftikhar Hussain, Vice Chancellor UET said that K-P is the largest tobacco producer, as more than 50 per cent tobacco is produced in the province as compared to other regions, adding that it is important that experts from both institutions gain maximum benefit from this resource for national economy.

Professor Dr Hamid Ullah Director BOASAR thanked the PTB team. He urged the need to engage postgraduate students in field work and provide internship opportunities to the undergraduate students.

He assured his continuous support on behalf of BAOSAR to enhance research activities through industry-academia linkage.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2022.