PU syndicate to handover prime land to NTDC

Decision is made in a meeting held at Committee Room of VC’s office

LAHORE: The Punjab University syndicate on Wednesday approved handover of 80 kanals of land to the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) amid protest by teachers’ representatives in the Syndicate.

The PU syndicate decided to give away 80 kanals of land to NTDC, which would transfer an amount of Rs640 million to the varsity in compensation of land as advance payment. The syndicate made this decision in its meeting held at Committee Room of Vice Chancellor’s office with a majority vote of eight in favour and four against.

However, the elected faculty members of the syndicate, including Dr Sajid Rashid, Dr Mahboob Hussain, Javed Sami and Abdul Majid Rana, resisted the move and refused to hand over PU land to NTDC. The university property is located near Mustafa Town next to Mumtaz Bakhtawar Hospital. Out of the 80 kanals being handed over 60 kanals would be used to build a grid station, while 20 kanals would be used to build roads.



Talking to The Express Tribune, Dr Mahboob Hussain said the government always looked to the varsity to acquire land. “Whenever they (the government) want land for any of its projects, they force the university to handover the land either for road extension or for building a grid station. “The university land is for the purpose of education and it should not be used otherwise. If there are alternative options available with the government, they should first look at those instead of always targeting the university,” he remarked.

While reacting to the allegations of teachers regarding the issue of land in which Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and PU Vice Chancellor Dr Zakria Zakar were criticised, the PU spokesperson Khurram Shahzad said a specific lobby wanted to pressurise the administration through ‘blackmailing tactics’.

He said Javed Sami and Shumaila Gul as members of syndicate never resisted giving away land to the government for extending Maulana Shaukat Ali Road rather they unanimously gave their consent in the meetings of the syndicate to surrender the university land to the government.

“The reason behind their move is some of them were looking for important administrative posts, overseas scholarships which they were not entitled to and out-of-turn promotions. Even if the administration decides or promises them to fulfill their illegal demands, they would stop fanning such baseless propaganda and rather would praise the same VC, as they did in the recent past,” the spokesperson alleged.

The spokesman said the same group praised the vice chancellor and now they were levelling baseless allegation just for political gains. The spokesman also alleged that since Javed Sami and Majid were the members of the syndicate, they were well-aware of the fact the authority to surrender land rested with the syndicate, not with the vice chancellor.

He claimed if these teachers think that the administration was spreading misinformation regarding ownership of the land, they must produce the land document in which the ownership of the said land was in the name of Punjab University.

Employees stage protest

Employees of the Punjab University also held a protest outside the vice chancellor’s office during the syndicate meeting. The protesting employees were the owners and residents of Punjab University Housing Scheme Town II.

The demonstrators alleged that the funds collected by the employees for their housing society were being used for Town I, the housing society of teaching staff. They held placards demanding that elections should be held for the management committee of their housing society, as per the decision of the Syndicate. They said consecutive vice chancellors imposed their own management committees for Town II, because of which most facilities such as gas connections were still unavailable for the people living there. 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2018.