Ishrat Hussain Usmani - Government Work - Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission

Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission

In 1960, Nazir Ahmad lost the slot as the Chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission to Usmani, who became its second chairman, on a request of President Ayub Khan. One of the earliest tasks he initiated was to begin building the man-power for the nuclear power industry. He introduced the scholarship program at the commission and sent hundreds of scientists abroad. Usmani requested his lifelong friends Dr. Alvin Martin Weinberg and Dr. Robert Charpi to allow Pakistan's foreign exchange students to carry out their research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), asking them to arrange an on-the-job training programme in nuclear science and engineering for a team of PAEC personnel. In 1965, after Salam undertook to establish a world-class physics institute in Pakistan, Usmani lobbied for it in the United States. The institute is now called the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH). Building a world-class research establishment also gave Salam the opportunity to exercise his abundant artistic talent. He took particular interest in creating a laboratory that was a masterpiece of architecture, first by choosing the world-famous Edward Durrell Stone as architect, and then by paying full attention to every detail in the construction and the furnishing of the facility.

Professor Abdus Salam was Usmani’s most trusted friend and adviser in science policy in the 1960s. He met with Salam when the latter was the professor of Theoretical Physics at the Imperial College of Science and Technology. He provided the crucial support to Salam in establishing the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), and played a supportive role to make Abdus Salam the Director of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics. Salam and Usmani worked as a powerful team to obtain national and international support for the development of science and technology as fundamental to economic growth. It was Salam's advice to Usmani to establish the Pakistan Atomic Energy Center at Lahore where he made D. Ishfaq Ahmad as its first scientific director. Abdus Salam also helped Usmani to establish the various atomic research centers such as Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB) in Faisalabad, and the Nuclear Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) in Islamabad.

Dr. I.H. Usmani conceived the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology as an architecturally inspiring edifice that would motivate scientists, and as many other Pakistani scientists, Usmani had worked closely with Abdus Salam on building nuclear power plants. Usmani became the second chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, where he, along with Dr. Abdus Salam, became an instrument in setting up nuclear research labs in Pakistan.