Bureaucratic delays continue to plague HITMS

Despite the rector and other staff drawing salaries, students have been unable to enroll in classes at the federal uni

KARACHI:

The Hyderabad Institute of Technology and Management Sciences (HITMS) established under a federal charter, has not even formed a Board of Governors (BoG) during the past one year, as a result of which no permanent appointments for officers or faculty have been made thus far, leading to unwarranted delays in the commencement of the academic session. Currently, the only permanent employee is the rector, while almost all other staff are either part-time or working on project-based contracts, with no permanent faculty, registrar, finance director, controller of examinations, or project director.

This issue was highlighted during a detailed hearing at the Supreme Court of Pakistan on the state of federal and provincial universities. It is noteworthy that the university's charter was passed by the National Assembly nearly three years ago however, it was only last year that the Chairman of the Karachi Intermediate Board was appointed as rector for four years. Subsequently, Rector Dr Saeeduddin submitted a panel of names for the formation of the BoG to the President's Office. The file kept circulating among the Higher Education Commission (HEC), the Federal Ministry of Education, the Prime Minister's Office, and the President's Office, where it was eventually shelved. However, during this time, the rector and other staff continued to draw salaries.

According to the Federal Secretary for Education, Mohiuddin Wani, the lack of a BoG was a significant barrier to the appointment of faculty and staff. "Now, the Chancellor Secretariat has approved the BoG panel two days ago, and a notification has been issued," claimed Wani.

Additionally, Dr Saeeduddin, Rector at HITMS revealed that he had submitted the BoG summary to the relevant office last year and the summary was returned with some questions, which were addressed and resubmitted to the President's Office. "The HEC has granted NOCs for two departments-Computer Science and Software Engineering-allowing admission to 100 students each. Applications have been invited for admissions, and interviews for faculty candidates have been conducted, but the BoG's approval is still pending," said Dr Saeeduddin.

According to the summary received by the Express Tribune, the recently approved BoG panel, delayed unnecessarily for over a year, includes Dr. Abdul Qadeer Rajput, Former Vice-Chancellor of Mehran University for the engineer/technologist seat, Dr. Sarosh Lodhi, Vice-Chancellor of NED University, Dr. Nasir Ansar, Former DG Colleges Sindh, and Rana Ansar, Former Caretaker Minister of Education, Sindh for the education/industry/science/business category. From the industrial and business sector, Adeel Siddiqui, President and Owais Iqbal Khan, Vice President of the Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce were also approved.

It is worth noting that the federal government has allocated 100 acres of land in Hyderabad for this university, but the construction work has not yet begun. Currently, the university is temporarily operating from a youth hostel building provided by the Sindh government, where the academic session is also set to begin. However, the design and drawings for the university's building have not been finalized, as there is no project director to initiate the process for construction on the allocated land.

HEC sources told the Express Tribune that the project for this university was initiated in 2017 with a PC-1 plan worth Rs1.9 billion but no progress has been made. With 2024 now here, the university cannot be built under the old PC-1 hence the administration has submitted a new PC-1 worth Rs4.8 billion rupees to HEC, which is to be presented to the federal government, but no significant progress has been made on this either.

The Express Tribune attempted to contact HEC Chairman Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed to inquire about the neglect of the university, but the call was answered by another officer, who stated that the Chairman was busy.