Department of Agricultural Engineering

Introduction and Overview

Pakistan’s economy is primarily an agrarian based as agriculture sector is contributing about 21 to its GDP, employing 45 % of its work force, and providing livelihood to more than 67 % of its population, which is residing mostly in the rural areas. But, contribution of this sector of economy is heavily dependent on adequate supply of irrigation water, state of the art modern as well as low cost farm equipment, structures and safe environment. At the same time, it is also needed to provide alternative energy sources and post-harvest food preservation technologies to ensure food security as post-harvest losses in fruits and vegetables could reduce production by 25-40%.

Keeping these issues in view, the Department of Agricultural Engineering is being established at Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology, Rahim Yar Khan. The Department is proud of its huge infrastructure, talented academia, well equipped laboratories, and well developed Engineering software laboratories. Department has also been recognized as a hub of academic professional and industry mechanization development. The Department has opened its doors to the public to boost its professional and industrial dialogue through University industry linkage, outreach programs, internship for students and MOUs with public/private sectors.

The overall objective of the Department is to train manpower through teaching and research in the field of irrigation and drainage, farm power and machinery, structures and environment. The faculty is very actively engaged in offering courses at undergraduate level to produce the skilled manpower specialized in managing water resources, farm equipment and environment.

The specific objectives of the department include:

Equipping the students with technical knowledge and skills required for the design, operation, maintenance and evaluation of irrigation, power and mechanical systems used in the industry and on agricultural farms.
To abreast the students with mathematical, experimental and computational skills for solving real time on field problems.

To develop skills in the students required to design, develop and modify indigenous farm and agro-industrial machines.

To enhance students’ skills to design, develop and implement water saving irrigation techniques with special focus on high efficiency irrigation systems.

To integrate academic learning with practice orientated experience through internship for career planning.

To serve as hub between professionals, researchers, industry and farmers.

Vision & Mission

The Department of Agricultural Engineering would like to be recognized nationally and world over as a high seminary of learning pertinent to water and environment management, farm mechanization, agro-processing, bio-energy systems engineering in the 21st century. The Department is serving to bridge the gap between the researchers and farmers. The professionals (teachers/researchers) aimed to excel imparting education and training

pertaining to water resources management and utilizing the water resources of the country in an efficient manner. Department plans to impart professional education, training and produce skilled manpower at graduate and postgraduate level in the field of Agricultural Engineering with special focus on resolving issues faced by the farming community. Department plans to improve communication skills of engineers through subject, project and thesis presentations, seminars and class discussions. The department has focused to develop energy center with the partnership of national and international organizations to formulate means to cop the current and forthcoming energy crises. Establishment of agro environmental research center to address the reclamation of environmental pollution from agriculture is also in planning phase. The development of center of remote sensing is also a future plan of the department in order to use state of the art remote sensing techniques in agriculture and water resources management.

The mission of the Department of Agricultural Engineering is to strengthen the academic programs of the University and to cater future needs of the trained manpower in the area of agricultural engineering specialized in water resources planning and management, farm machinery, agro processing, food engineering and environment management. The department is ready to serve the nation by providing trained manpower to plan and execute the public and private sectors projects pertaining to environment such as farm waste processing, water quality management, improved farm structures.

Key Facts and Focus Area

Full Title of the Program:

Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Engineering Duration (minimum): 4 years Number of semesters: 8
Number of weeks per semester: 16-18 (minimum 16 weeks for teaching and 2 weeks for examinations)
Total number of credit hours: 137
Number of credit hours per semester: 14-18
Engineering Courses (Minimum): 73.72 per cent
Non-Engineering Courses (Maximum): 23.28 percent

Definition of Credit hour

Theory: 1 Credit hour= 1 Contact hour per week

Practical: 1 Credit hour= 3 contact hours per week

A mandatory two to three weeks survey camp to be arranged during summer semester after 4th semester (Grades: Excellent, Good, Satisfactory)
A supervised internship training to be arranged by the institution after six semesters as the requirement of the degree (Grades: Excellent, Good, Satisfactory)
Project and Report will be completed in two semesters i.e. 7th and 8th and students will be distributed among the faculty members.
For Admission in B.S. Agricultural Engineeirng the Candidates should have at least 60% marks in FSc (Pre-Engineering)/ Equivalent qualification (Excluding sports and Hafiz-e-Quran). Two Seats for diploma holder qualifying the entry test. 70% weightage to FSc(pre-Engineering)/Equivalent qualification (Excluding sports and Hafiz-e-Quran)/Two Seats for diploma holder and 30% to Entry Test

Lab Facilities / Infrastructure

A Developmental Project in the form of PC-1 for the department has already been approved by the HEC for additional buildings, laboratories and other infrastructure. The civil works of the new building for Agricultural Engineering department has started and will hopefully be completed in coming year.