PESHAWAR, April 4: The Khyber Medical College Teachers Association has asked the government to immediately upgrade the college to a medical university for promoting an effective health delivery system in the province. “The government should honour the commitment it made with the people of the province in 1989,” said the association’s president Dr Zahid Hussain Khalil at a news conference on Tuesday.

Dr Khalil, the association’s general secretary Dr Aziz Wazir and other office-bearers said delay in implementation of the project would have serious effects on medical education and healthy delivery system in the province.

They said former prime minister Benazir Bhutto had announced in 1989 that the Khyber Medical College would be upgraded to university level. Former NWFP chief minister Sardar Mehtab Ahmad Khan also made a similar announcement, followed by President Pervez Musharraf in 2004, they said.

They said Gen Musharraf had issued directives to former governor Iftikhar Hussain Shah to expedite work on the project and ensure its implementation.

They said the federal education ministry had recommended upgrading of the Khyber Medical College in Peshawar, King Edward Medical College in Lahore and Liaquat Medical College in Jamshoro to university level.

“The other two colleges have been given medical university status,” said Dr Khalil.

They said that if the college was given university status, it would reduce financial burden on the NWFP government, as the institution would receive Rs3 billion in annual grant from the Higher Education Commission.

They said more than 60 per cent of the teachers in the college had been serving on contract basis for the several years.

“The college with its Rs160 million budget cannot offer attractive packages to its staff. They will leave for other institutions unless the college is given university status, services of teachers are regularised and they are given incentives,” they said.