MULTAN: Expressing his annoyance over the approach being adopted at government level to run the affairs of the Muhammad Nawaz Sharif University of Agriculture (MNSUA), acting Vice Chancellor Dr Iqrar Ahmed Khan says it is better to shut the institute.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Dr Khan said that it was not possible to run the university without land and funds.

“The land earmarked for the university is in illegal occupation and the institution is being run in a high school building which is not sufficient to accommodate 750 students. The number of the students will increase further after new admissions,” he said.

He said that university administration had repeatedly asked the commissioner and district coordination officer to get the land vacated but to no avail.

“A middle way was suggested by the district government and now the issue is pending somewhere with the Punjab Revenue Board,” he said.

He said that Rs35 million were announced by the government for the ongoing year but only Rs2.9 had been released so far while the fiscal year was about to end.

“The federal government did not announce even a single penny. In such circumstance how a university could be run,” he said. He said that the Higher Education Commission had agreed to provide a financial support of Rs8 million to the university

“Over Rs300 million PC-I of the project has been prepared and Planning and Development Department is demanding land to materialize the project but there is no land,” he said.

He said that Auqaf Department was demanding Rs90 million for 30 year lease in return of handing over its land in Makhdoom Rasheed.

He said that besides the land and funds related issue, the university was facing faculty shortage. He said that the government should announce more than 300 foreign PhD scholarships for the students of southern Punjab.

Earlier, giving briefing on models developed by the UAF for proper application of fertilizer, he said crop yield could be enhanced by 50 per cent through balanced use of fertilizers.

He added that the UAF had developed different models with the collaboration of agriculture department, USAID and ICARDA. He pointed out that almost all soils in Punjab had become deficient in nitrogen and phosphorus as a result of which the yield was on the decline.

He said that an additional income of Rs 260 billion could be generated through balanced use of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers for wheat, rice, cotton, sugarcane and maize. He said the average use of phosphorus fertilizer had declined due to price factor, badly affecting per acre yield.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2015

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