Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: In the first time of the history of Pakistan, Punjab University (PU) has decided to include tourism as subject in its curriculum and an agreement between PU and Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) has been reached on this count.

According to the agreement it will be binding on PTDC to provide jobs to the students who do Ph D in tourism subject. The country’s soft image will emerge with including tourism as subject in PU syllabus.

Well placed sources told Daily Times that former food and jail minister Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor has been appointed as new Chairman PTDC by Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif and Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor has accepted this office as challenge. He has started taking steps to make the corporation free from politics, and a dynamic and profitable institution. Sources told this scribe that tourism is being introduced as subject for the first time. PTDC Chairman Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor met Vice Chancellor PU and both the institutions signed an MoU under which PU will make tourism as part of its curriculum and it will award Ph D degree in tourism. It will also pursue various sources to attract the students to take admission in tourism. Awareness will be created among the students about advantages of admission into tourism subject. MD PTDC Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor has called on the PM several proposals to stand PTDC on its own feet were also discussed. He also requested the PM to release special grant to overcome financial particularly salaries problems of employees and the PM has accepted this request.