Rs8b for Swat varsity raises many eyebrows

Complain about employees not getting paid

PESHAWAR:

The provincial government’s approval of Rs8 billion for the establishment of an Engineering University in Swat, the home district of Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, has irked public sector universities that are facing the worst financial crisis in their history and are not even able to pay salaries to their staff.

The University of Peshawar (UOP), the oldest in the province, has already issued a circular informing its employees that only basic salary will be paid to them in the month of February due to lack of funds and even the century-old Islamia College as well as Agriculture University Peshawar are faced with a similar situation in which they are seeking bailout packages from the government.

Islamia College asked the government for Rs610 million in bailout package on an emergency basis. UoP has sought Rs400 million while Agriculture University is demanding Rs900 million to enable it pay its employees.

Islamia College owns properties worth billions of rupees but due to decades of negligence, shopkeepers and others who rented its buildings and agriculture lands are not paying any rent to the college as a result of which the institution has nearly gone bankrupt. As per the documents submitted in the provincial assembly of K-P, Islamia College has property in Charsadda district, Khyber Bazar, Peshawar, and University Town, Peshawar. The college owns more than two hundred shops in the busiest commercial area of Khyber Bazar but these shops were leased to the people with a low rent in the past and these people rented them to third parties as a result the college received very little amount in return for its property worth billions.

General Secretary of Engineering University Teachers Association Sadiq Ali while talking to The Express Tribune said that on the one hand the provincial government was all set to establish an Engineering University in the hometown of CM while on the other the universities were running from pillar to post to win financial bailout.

“What the government is doing with the universities in K-P is not good and it would lead to nowhere. The higher education sector has been in a shambles and the situation is going from bad to worse with each passing day,” Sadiq Ali added.

He added that the government should release funds to the universities on a war footing as the Covid-19 has badly affected the varsities and many of the self-finance students will not be able to get admission in campuses due to their own financial difficulties.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2021.