TIMERGARA: Even more than three years after its inauguration, the Timergara Medical College has yet to become functional.

PTI chief Imran Khan and then Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had inaugurated the college on July 4, 2015.

The health department in consultation with the technical education department later announced that the medical college would function in the new building of the Government Commerce College for Women, Rani, which had yet to begin classes.

The Rs135 million worth of building stands 7.5km east of Timergara.

On Oct 30, 2017, chief of the then ruling Jamaat-i-Islami Sirajul Haq announced in the presence of project director and district health officer Dr Shaukat Ali that the medical college would become functional next year. However, classes didn’t begin.

MPA denies project scrapped, says it’s part of ADP

The Jamaat later warned that it would quit the government if the TMC project was shelved or didn’t get adequate funds.

Earlier this month, the opposition parties alleged that the TMC project had been excluded from the annual development programme for the current fiscal.

However, PTI member of the provincial assembly Shafiullah Khan denied it saying the project is an ongoing scheme and is part of the ADP.

He said he recently spoke to the chief minister and health minister about the issue and got an assurance of their full support on it.

The lawmaker said the government had allocated Rs50 million for the college in the ADP and would ensure its early functioning.

“There should be a permanent and well-furnished building for the medical college,” he said, adding that the existing building was not suitable to house a medical college.

Former deputy medical superintendent of Category-A District Headquarters Hospital Timergara Dr Salim Khan told Dawn that the medical college’s establishment would improve health services in the area.

“We will have house job doctors in the hospital wards, professors, assistant professors and specialist doctors in the district to treat poor patients on their doorstep if the college becomes functional,” he said.

Lower Dir deputy commissioner Sarmad Saleem Akram said the project had been handed over to the health department and therefore, the district administration had nothing to do with it.

TMC project director Dr Shaukat Ali denied that the project had been scrapped and said the PTI government had allocated Rs100 million for it, while the caretaker government had released Rs10 million.

“The current PTI government has released Rs12.5 million for the ‘renovation and alteration’ work on the project,” he said.

He said the structure of four lecture theatres was ready, while civil work on pathology and physiology laboratories and dissection hall was near completion.

Dr Shaukat however said the classes would take two more years to begin.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2018