9th Meeting of the Standing Committee on Science and Technology was held on 24th December, 2019 at 11:00 a.m in Committee Room of PCSIR Ministry of Science and Technology, Islamabad under the Chairmanship of Mr. Sajid Mehdi, MNA. The meeting of the committee commenced with the recitation of holy Quran.
 
Director, Pakistan Scientific and Technological Information Centre (PASTIC) informed the Committee that PASTIC is specialized Organization in the field of Science and Technology (S&T) information handling and responsible for catering to the need of Research and Development (R&D) and also for industrial community across the country.  PASTIC was established under the PCSIR in 1957 and later, it was transferred under the administrative control of Pakistan Science Foundation in 1974. PASTIC provided the network of libraries, up-to-date research literatures from local and foreign sources for the research students and scientists of the country. It has created many facilities’ for the scientists/ research students like training, printing, composing, designing, computer training laboratories by establishing the six Centers in the country.
He further informed that PASTIC is planning to develop the National S&T data center including all disciplines like social sciences, natural and applied sciences and publishing the same in statistical year’s book annually for the information of the youth of the country.
The Committee appreciated/supported and emphasized that PASTIC should publish such data and distributed to the youth through renowned universities of the country. 
Director, Pakistan Museum of Natural History (PMNH) was invited to explain the working and performance of the Organization. He informed that PMNH was established on 05 Acre land in 1976 near Shakarparian, Islamabad with four divisions like Botanical Science, Earth Science, Zoological Science and Public service. It serves global and national needs in three areas like Research, Conservation and Informal education. He further informed that numbers of national and international people visited the museum annually and generated the revenues for national exchequer through nominal amount of ticketing..
The Committee has view that PMNH has potential to divert itself toward self-sustainability by indulging in commercial activities as lot of people visited annually. The Committee advised the Director General, PMNH to prepare a feasible report for establishing the hotel, tea/coffee shops and other commercial activities and placed before the Ministry for granting the loan by international donor or the loan from national banks and report to the committee within two months.
 
 The meeting was attended by Engineer Usman Khan Tarakai, Mr. Abdul Shakoor Shad, Ms. Sobia Kamal Khan,, Ms. Zeb Jaffar, Ch Shaukat Ali Bhatti, Naveed Aamer Jeeva, Dr samina Matloob,, Ch Ashraf and Dr Mukhtar Ahmad Malik,MNA’s besides the senior officers from the Ministry of Science and Technology. The Meeting was ended with the votes of thanks.