MULTAN, Nov 20: The public-sector universities in Punjab will send teams of youth to join the rehabilitation efforts in the earthquake-hit areas of Azad Kashmir and the NWFP.

Each team will comprise 10 students, two teachers and as many technicians with background in civil and woodworks. Leading institutions like the Punjab University and the Bahauddin Zakariya University will organize 10 such teams to be dispatched to the devastated areas.

A meeting with Governor Khalid Maqbool in the chair was held in the provincial capital the other day to give a final shape to the formation of youth teams from the institutions of higher education. Representatives of all the state-run universities were present at the meeting.

The BZU was represented by its academic staff association president Dr Abdul Qudoos Sohaib, deputy registrar Malik Muneer and deputy director students affairs Imtiaz Warraich.

Dr Sohaib told Dawn that the youth teams would be assigned different tasks, including distribution and book keeping of the relief goods and surveys of the affected areas, especially of villages, to assess requirements of the people in distress.

The teams would work under the command of the military authorities supervising the relief efforts.

Each team would be stationed in the affected areas for one month on a self-support basis, said Dr Sohaib. He said the universities had been directed to organize seminars on earthquake and its aftermath and publish material on the subject for public awareness.

It was also decided at the meeting that in the coming years the students studying in the education departments of the universities would have to serve in the quake-affected areas as part of their compulsory internship to obtain the degrees in teaching.

The first batch of the selected teams would undergo a three-day training starting from Nov 22 before leaving for the devastated areas.