senior scientists, Pakistan followed a strict non-nuclear weapon policy from 1956 until 1971, as PAEC under its chairman Ishrat Hussain Usmani made no efforts to acquire nuclear fuel cycle technology for the purposes of an active nuclear weapons programme. In 1961, the PAEC set up a Mineral Center at Lahore and a similar multidisciplinary Center was set up in Dhaka, in the then East Pakistan. With these two centres, the basic research work started. The first thing that was to be undertaken was the search for uranium. This continued for about three years from 1960 to 1963. Uranium deposits were discovered in the Dera Ghazi Khan district, and the first-ever national award was given to the PAEC. Mining of uranium began in the same year. Dr. Abdus Salam and Dr. Ishrat Hussain Usmani also sent a large number of scientists to pursue doctorate degrees in the field of nuclear technology and nuclear reactor technology. In December 1965, then-foreign minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto visited Vienna where he met IAEA nuclear engineer, Munir Ahmad Khan. At a Vienna meeting on December, Khan informed Bhutto about the status of India's nuclear program. The next landmark under Dr. Abdus Salam was the establishment of PINSTECH – Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology, at Nilore near Islamabad. The principal facility there was a 5MW research reactor, commissioned in 1965 and consisting of the PARR-I, which was upgraded to 10 MWe by Nuclear Engineering Division under Munir Ahmad Khan in 1990. A second Atomic Research Reactor, known as PARR-II, was a Pool-type, light-water, 27–30 kWe, training reactor that went critical in 1989 under Munir Ahmad Khan. The PARR-II reactor was built and provided by PAEC under the IAEA safeguards as IAEA had funded this mega project. The PARR-I reactor was, under the agreement signed by PAEC and ANL, provided by the US Government in 1965, and scientists from PAEC and ANL had led the construction. Canada built Pakistan's first civil-purpose nuclear power plant. The Ayub Khan Military Government made then-science advisor to the Government, Abdus Salam, head of the IAEA delegation. Abdus Salam began lobbying for commercial nuclear power plants, and tirelessly advocated for nuclear power in Pakistan. In 1965, Salam's efforts finally paid off, and a Canadian firm signed a deal to provide the 137MWe CANDU reactor in Paradise Point, Karachi. The construction began in 1966 as PAEC its general contractor as GE Canada