GUJRAT: The federal and Punjab governments will jointly provide funds for establishment of the University of Applied Engineering and Emerging Technologies (UAEET) in Sialkot.

The Punjab government has provided a free-of-cost 500 acres piece of land near Sambrial for the project whose total estimated cost is Rs16.8bn. The federal and Punjab governments will provide half of the amount each for the project scheduled to be completed by 2027.

The university is being established in collaboration with Austrian and Chinese technology universities and Dr Attaur Rehman, vice chairman of PM’ taskforce on knowledge economy, is already working on it on behalf of the federal government.

Qaiser Iqbal Baryar, the president of the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), claims that Prime Minister Imran Khan had announced the establishment of the UAEET during his visit to the chamber at the end of the last year as local business fraternity had been demanding such an institution as could help the industry get human resource equipped with the modern knowledge.

As per the project’s plan, at least five major bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes will be launched at the university, such as industrial engineering, manufacturing and mechatronics, chemical and materials engineering, information technology, artificial intelligence, agricultural engineering/industrial biotechnology and business management and entrepreneurship and information.

Mr Baryar said the UAEET would offer dual degrees of the foreign partner institutions to its graduates who would receive the UAEET degrees too.

The university will initially be established at 150 acres piece of land and later on the entire 500 acres will become a knowledge city, having a technology park, which will have the incubators for start-ups, shell units for small and medium size companies and plots for major companies.

At least five academic blocks and one admin block with central library and three hostels (one for girls and two for boys), housing colony for faculty, furnished family suites for foreign faculty, activity centre, guesthouse, mosque, school, sport complex and other related facilities are a part of project.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2021