PESHAWAR, Sept 1: Students belonging to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) are concerned over the delaying tactics reportedly employed by the authorities to stop the establishment of a medical college in their region.

“We would start countrywide protest demonstrations if the government failed to start construction of the buildings of a medical college in Parachinar within a month,” said Mohammad Ali Zeeshan, head of the Tribal Students Organisation (TSO).

He said the late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had announced in the 1970s the establishment of the Fata Medical College in Parachinar, Kurram Agency, but the project was yet to be implemented.

Mr Zeeshan said a former provincial governor had also announced that a medical college would be set up in Parachinar for which a site had been selected.

He said NWFP Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai’s efforts to establish a medical college for Fata students in Peshawar would be resisted, because projects envisaging setting up of an engineering college and two degree colleges had already been shifted from Bajaur Agency to the provincial capital.

Health officials said the federal government was spending Rs13.7 billion on the development of health facilities in the Fata under the Sustainable Development Programme by 2015.

“Under the plan, a medical college and a paramedical institute would be established in Fata,” said an official.

Activists of the TSO said they had been holding protest demonstrations to force the government to establish a medical college in Parachinar.

Officials at the directorate of health told Dawn that earlier it had decided to set up a medical college in Khyber Agency because of its proximity with Peshawar.

For this purpose, the authorities had started looking for land in the Jamrud tehsil of Khyber Agency which is adjacent to the Hayatabad Township, Peshawar.

“Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai had asked for shifting the project from the Kurram Agency to some other appropriate area in tribal agencies, which was accessible to students from the tribal area and other parts of the country,” officials said.

They said Rs90 million had already been allocated in the current Annual Development Programme for the construction of a medical college and the PC-II of the project had been approved in order to hire consultants.

Once established, 80 per cent of the seats in the college would be reserved for Fata, five per cent for Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir and the remaining seats would be filled up through open merit.

The TSO says that they were against the shifting of the college, adding the government cannot justify shifting of the college because law and order situation in the agency was far better as compared to other parts of the Fata.

Fata health director Dr Zubair Khan said that consultants had been hired to select an appropriate site for the college. The consultants would survey tribal agencies and the governor would give final approval to their proposed site.