HYDERABAD, May 23: The executive council of the Sindh Agriculture University Teachers Association (SAUTA) has alleged that Vice Chancellor Dr Bashir Ahmed Chandio has made irregularities in awarding a contract for the construction of a hostel.

SAUTA president Prof Dr Mohammad Roshan Waggan and secretary Prof Ali Nawaz Leghari in fax messages to the Sindh governor, federal minister for education, federal finance secretary general, and the auditor general of Pakistan, said the vice chancellor had arbitrarily changed the project specifications from a hostel with a capacity of 82 rooms for 250 students to a multi-purpose building with 36 rooms for students and laboratories to house the information technology centre.

They said this had been done without getting clearance from the advisory building committee, university syndicate and the federal ministry of education.

They alleged that prior to this, an amount of Rs20 million, released by the federal government, was kept in private accounts.

The office-bearers of the teachers association pointed out that the site for the so-called hostel building had been selected adjacent to the road leading to Mirpurkhas, between a post office and residential quarters, without proper space, air and sunshine.

They said the residents of the hostel as well as equipments would be an easy prey for burglars.

They demanded proper audit of the amount released since 1996, when the hostel was approved, to fix responsibility for false utilization and misuse of project funds so far.

They further demanded to stop the alleged illegal construction work forthwith, obtain proper approval from competent federal and university authorities to change specifications of the project and select an appropriate location before embarking on the construction work.

HRCP: A Hari and workers convention is being held at the Khipro town hall, Sanghar District, on May 26 at 10am under the aegis of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).