KU staff ‘steal’ laptops meant for students

The KU had held a laptop distribution ceremony on November 11, 2014

KARACHI:

Suspected Karachi University (KU) staffers made off with dozens of laptops meant for distribution among the students under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s National Programme for the Provision of Laptops to Talented Students.

The laptop shipment was lying with the KU administration since October last year when the Higher Education Commission (HEC), on behalf of the prime minister’s secretariat, handed over a total of 3,870 laptops to the varsity, confirmed the office of the KU student adviser, Prof Dr Ansar Rizvi, who was made in-charge of the laptop distribution.



The KU held a laptop distribution ceremony on November 11, 2014, but only a selected group of 171 students were invited, fearing a backlash from the political rivals of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government.

“Since October last year till date, the KU administration had managed to dispense only 600 laptops due to laxity on part of the varsity officials in validating the record of the laptop recipients with the HEC,” said a university professor, requesting not to be named. “From the remaining batch of over 3,200 laptops, the KU student adviser’s office found dozens of empty boxes around a month ago but the university administration refrained from reporting the theft to the police.”

Dr Rizvi confirmed, however, the theft of at least 16 laptops while adding that the incident had been reported to the varsity’s security officials, who were supposed to pursue the matter with the police. The break-in had reportedly occurred at the varsity’s old accounts section where the laptops were temporarily stored under the vigilance of two security guards.

Anwar Amjad, HEC’s information technology director-general, told The Express Tribune that the approximate cost incurred to the federal government on each laptop was $474 (approximately Rs48,198).

The government paid a total of $47,430,000 to the successful bidder, China-based Haier Electrical Appliance Corporation Limited, to supply and commission 100,000 Haier 7G-5H laptops, equipped with Intel® 4th Generation Core i3 processors.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2015.