PESHAWAR, March 26: NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah has said that removing disparities and ensuring balanced development throughout the province were the prime objectives of the government and efforts being made to achieve these goals.

Talking to newsmen during a visit to the site for the 3rd campus of the Peshawar-based University of Engineering and Technology at Bannu on Tuesday morning, the governor said the centralization policy of the past had created a sense of deprivation among the people of far-flung and backward areas and keeping this fact in mind the government was trying to bring high-tech education and tertiary-level healthcare to the doorsteps of the masses.

In this connection, he added, the government had already achieved a major breakthrough in the provision of university-level education and the journey which started with the establishment of the first university at Mansehra by the present government, after the creation of similar institutions at Chakdara, Mardan and Kohat, was progressing quite satisfactorily and now this third campus of the Engineering University would prove another milestone in this respect.

The governor also mentioned the efforts being made for the upgradation of healthcare services and said all the district-level hospitals were being categorised as A, B and C level purely on the basis of the ratio of population with the object not only to ensure judicious use of public resources but also to provide facilities on the basis of merit.

He referred to his recent visit to Karak, and said that the newly established Revenue School at Karak would be upgraded to the academy level in near future. Similarly, he said he would be shortly visiting other southern districts of the province and would take more practical steps for the well-being of the people.

Earlier, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Engineering & Technology, Sardar Khan, said that a revolution had ushered in the education sector during the past one year, particularly the establishment of eight universities within a short span of time was unprecedented, and certainly would have no match in future also.

In his welcome address, District Nazim Mohammad Iqbal paid rich tribute to the governor specially for the decision of opening third campus of University of Engineering & Technology at Bannu.

The Comprehensive School’s building, which would serve as the third campus of the Engineering University, have 54 rooms, including workshops and laboratories besides five acres open area. The building would not only meet the present requirements of the new campus, but would also be able to meet the future needs. The students of the said school, he said, could not only be easily accommodated in the nearby schools but there were also more than three options to start another school in the existing buildings within a radius of about four kilometres.

Earlier, the governor accompanied by the VC and Nazims of Bannu, Tank, D.I.Khan, Karak and Kohat, inspected the school building and approved its conversion into the third camps of the University of Engineering and Technology.