IEEE Lahore Section History

History of IEEE Pakistan Section

Since 1947 when Pakistan was created, with two wings, East & West Pakistan, there were a couple of members of IEEE located in this area. Upto 1968 there were more than one hundred members residing in both East & West Pakistan. More in West Pakistan especially in the town of Lahore, the capital of West Pakistan, a central place of Electrical activities. Lahore is also the Head Office of Water and Power Development Authority, the biggest utility company of the country. The IEEE members residing in Lahore felt the need of having a common forum for arranging technical meetings and seminars to increase their technical knowledge.

In accordance with IEEE by-laws collection of petitions for establishing a Pakistan Section was taken in hand. Since members of IEEE were scattered allover the country it took quite some time to collect the requisite number of petitions from IEEE members. The entire process of collecting of petitions and submitting them to Head Office was carried out for a couple of months by WAPDA's Director Mr. I.D Arshad and an American expatriate engineer Mr. Larner, who later on became Fellow of the IEEE. Therefore a special resolution was approved for the establishment of Pakistan Section in 1968. Then Mr. I.D. Arshad was appointed as Chairman of the Section on adhoc basis to conduct elections for the officers of the Section. As a result of elections Mr. S.M. Akbari became the first Chairman of the Section for the year 1969.

Framing of the constitution of Pakistan Section was then taken up which was approved by the Regional Director and IEEE Executive Committee in 1970. With the establishment of the Section in this country many benefits started accruing to the members living in this area. Technical meetings were regularly held almost every month at which papers were contributed by prominent engineering and IEEE members. To encourage the enrolment of new members it was resolved by the Pakistan Section for allowing them the facility of payment of part of their dues in rupees - IEEE Headquarters agreed to accept but 10% of the annual dues in local .currency. This amount was used in turn by the local section to meet with the expenses of arranging technical meetings, seminars and for conducting membership publicity campaign.

Incidently Pakistan Section became one of the pioneer Section in Region-10.

Mr. S.M. Akbari remained Chairman of the Section upto 1972.

In 1973, Mr. S.M. Vehra was elected Chairman to succeed Mr. Akbari who remained in this position for about six years after repeated elections. The Region-10 Committee proposed an amendment to the PAKISTAN Section Constitution restricting the tenure of office of the Section to a maximum of three years which amendment was accepted by Pakistan Section and provided as such in the Constitution.

In 1978, Mr. I.D. Arshad was elected Chairman of the Section when the total membership of the Section was increased to 135. This number had gone much below 100th mark after the separation of East Pakistan in early seventies when Bangladesh was created. Due to extra efforts put in by the officers of the Section and active support given by Director Region-10 the membership campaign was further speeded up.

During this period members residing in Karachi, a big port city of Pakistan petitioned to form a sub-section which was accepted. Karachi sub-section was formed on May 22, 1978. Due to untiring efforts and dedication of Mian S. Hasan, previous Vice-Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer of Pakistan Karachi sub-section was raised to Section level on July 17, 1982 with 76 members. Dr. R.E. Larson the President of IEEE formally inaugurated Karachi Section. A student branch at the University of Engineering and Technology Lahore was also inaugurated by him in 1982. In Dr. Larson's remarks, he rightly mentioned Mr. Hasan as godfather of Karachi and Pakistan Section.

The IEEE Islamabad Sub-Section was founded on August 5, 1998, at the conference hall of the Pakistan Engineering Council, Islamabad - the scenic capital of Pakistan. In this inaugural meeting, Dr. Muhammad Akbar was elected its first chairman. Professor Muhammad Zafrullah and Engr. Shahab Hussain were elected as secretary and assistant secretary respectively.

Considering the need of more effective liaison with Professional and Student members, Islamabad Section initiated the Peshawar Sub-Section. This would be associated with Islamabad Section until its maturity to full Section Status.

Now Pakistan has three full sections, Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad and one sub-section Peshawar.

All of these sections are actively engaged in the engineering profession and are collaborating with other national professional institutions in arranging symposium, technical lectures and seminars of national importance.