MULTAN: The Bahauddin Zakariya University is going to establish two sub-campuses in Khanewal and Muzaffargarh besides opening a summer camp in Naran.

Talking to this correspondent on Wednesday, Vice Chancellor Dr Tariq Mehmood Ansari said: “We are going to initiate as many as 12 new projects and proposals in this regard have been sent to the Higher Education Commission.”

He said initially it was estimated that Rs1,927.225 million would be spent on the establishment of a campus in Muzaffargarh and Rs2,000m on Khanewal campus.

He said he held a meeting with the HEC officials who asked the university administration to submit its proposal for various development projects for new fiscal year. “The [university’s] Lodhran campus is already functional in a rented-building and the HEC had allocated some amount for running the affairs of the sub-campus.”

He said the estimated cost of Lodhran campus was Rs231.815m out of which Rs50m had been released by the HEC.

“Currently four disciplines - English, information technology, public administration and sociology - are running in the Lodhran campus while the university administration had written a letter to the deputy commissioner [Lodhran] to provide land for the campus after identifying 245 acre and four kanal land at Chak No99/M, sent the case for approval to the revenue department,” he said.

Ansari said other proposals included strengthening the institute of banking and finance and facilities of institute of chemical sciences, establishing museum of natural history (department of zoology), setting up institute of water research and water engineering, hi-tech laboratory, multidisciplinary studies, teacher student centre and construction of residences for staff.

He said the estimated cost for launching a summer camp at Naran is Rs50m while Rs100m each would be spent on hi-tech laboratory, teacher student centre and staff residences.

“The university’s faculty development programme, which had been initiated in 2009-10, is about to complete as 70 faculty members have already been awarded scholarship for their PhD programme,” he said.

“Under the programme 100 scholarships were announced at a cost of Rs870m; however after currency devaluation, the university administration has requested the HEC to provide additional grant to complete 100 scholarships but the HEC is yet to make a decision to this effect,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2019