PESHAWAR, Aug 22: Vice-Chancellor of NWFP University of Engineering and Technology Imtiaz Hussain Gilani has said that despite possessing more natural resources than developed countries, the Muslim states were still unable to compete with them in terms of development.

He was speaking on the occasion of the UET’s annual project exhibition 2005 here on Monday.

Fourteen projects were presented to industrialists and the general public of which four were selected for further refinement and commercialisation.

Mr Gilani said that 90 per cent of world’s natural resources were in Islamic countries but not one of them had shown its GDP on a par with any one of the industrialized nations.

“This is high time our young generation came forward by using indigenous resources and worked for the development of the country,” he said.

He urged the outgoing graduates to enter practical life with a positive attitude and translate the technical knowledge they gained during their academic years into a meaningful resource, in keeping with the market demand.

The VC later distributed awards among the participants. The first prize went to a project titled ‘Remotely Piloted Vehicle System Design & Fabrication’ which was supervised by engineer Tahir Khan. The second award went to project ‘Design & Fabrication of Motorised Prosthetic Hand’ and the third to ‘Design and Fabrication of Monstration Model of Wind Turbine’, both supervised by engineer Haji Faridullah.

An official of the Pakistan Tobacco Company, Abdullah Shah, gave away cash prizes to award winners.

Dr M.A. Irfan, the chairman of mechanical engineering department and the organiser of the event, said such exhibitions provided a platform for graduating students to present their work to the industry and get an opportunity for on-spot recruitment through maximising university-industry interaction.

He told the gathering that sixteen graduates of UET’s mechanical engineering department were hired by the industry and multinationals before their final results were out.