KOHAT: The work on the government girls degree college, Ustarzai, scheduled to be completed in 2014, is nowhere near completion, forcing the students to quit education as their parents cannot afford to send them to the institutions in other areas of the district.

Talking to Dawn, former district councillor Mian Shah Raza, chairman of Ittefaq welfare organisation Esar Bangash and others said that several inquiries ordered by the deputy commissioners from time to time over delay in the college’s construction had hit snags. They said that two contractors had already been replaced after the detection of anomalies and unusual delay in its completion. They wondered why no action had been taken against any of the contractors or the officials responsible for supervising and completing the work within the stipulated time period.

The work on the college building started in June 2013 after its ground breaking was performed by then provincial minister Syed Qalb e Hassan in his backward constituency.

The college was sanctioned for the western parts of Kohat district from where hundreds of girls had to come to Kohat city colleges for getting higher education.

The western parts of Kohat are mostly backward and parents don not educate their daughters after secondary education. So, this college was sanctioned to promote higher education among the females at their doorstep. The land for the college was provided free by a local elder, Syed Mahtab ul Hassan.

Meanwhile, executive engineer communication and works Hamraz Khattak is stated to have told commissioner, Kohat division, Syed Abdul Jabbar Shah that work on the college would now be completed by the next year.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2019