PESHAWAR: The students of various technical educational institutions and members of B. Tech Engineers Association have expressed concern over the appointment of Syed Imtiaz Hussain Gilani as project director of the proposed technical university and demanded his replacement.

Speaking at a joint press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday, a group of students and B-Tech qualified engineers alleged that the project director was a biased person who always opposed B-Tech and planned to launch BS technology in the technical university instead of B-Tech courses.

“We will oppose the project director as we fear he will deprive us of our due rights,” said Irfan Ali Khan, a representative of the B-Tech Engineers Association. He said that Mr Gilani had always opposed technical colleges because he was the vice-chancellor of an engineering university, Peshawar. 

He said that the proposed technical university would be established for technology students.

However, he feared that the new director would not let the B-Tech qualified engineers to enter the engineering university for research.

He said that students of different technical colleges and B-Tech engineers had set one week deadline for replacement of the director otherwise they would start a protest campaign against his appointment.

“Imtiaz Gilani had opposed admission of B-Tech engineers into MS programme,” he claimed. Mr Khan said Mr Gilani, the then acting chairman of Higher Education Commission, had withdrawn B-Tech equivalency with BSc engineering.

He said that now the BSc technology programme would be introduced in the proposed technical university, which would be another attempt to end the B-Tech engineering programme. He feared that this step would put the future of thousands of B-Tech engineering students at stake.

“We appeal to Governor Sardar Mahtab Ahmed Khan and Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to remove the incumbent project director of the proposed technical university within a week,” he said and warned that in case otherwise the B-Tech engineers and students of different colleges would start protest demonstrations, initially to besiege the provincial assembly building.

Published in Dawn March 12th , 2015

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