HYDERABAD, July 21: The senate of Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, on Wednesday approved the revised recurring budget estimates of Rs272.739 million for the year 2003-04 and annual budget estimates of Rs353.611 million for the year 2004-05.

The budget envisaged a deficit of more than Rs53.128 million due to an inadequate government grant, increase in utility bills and the POL. The vice-chancellor of the university, Dr A.Q.K Rajput, presided over the meeting.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Rajput said the university had advanced simultaneously on two fronts - expansion and consolidation - and managed to increase the number of technologies from three traditional technologies of civil, mechanical and electrical engineering to 16 technologies.

He said the university offered maximum number of engineering disciplines than any other engineering university in the country. Mr Rajput said that the MUET was also playing a positive role in the implementation of government policy with regard to the promotion of information technology.

In furtherance of this objective, he said the Institute of Information Technology was set up and post-graduate programmes in communication systems and networks, software engineering and telecommunication and control engineering had also been initiated.

The vice-chancellor said the Mehran had entered into several collaborative arrangements with the private sector in Karachi and Hyderabad to boost up information technology and human capital.

He told the meeting that the Higher Education Commission had selected to establish the ICT centre at the university to serve the whole nation in the fast emerging field of information and communication technologies.

He said with the object of providing higher quality education and opening the gates of global job market for our students, the university had been certified with ISO-9000-2001 by the Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance.

He said the MUET had also been graded as the best in the surveillance audit this year. He said the university had been trying its best to minimize the recurring expenditure and divert the resources to development and research. All the professors, department heads and nominated members of the senate attended the meeting.

PROMOTED: The Sindh governor who is also the chancellor of the University of Sindh has awarded BPS-21 to Prof (Dr) Qazi Khadim Hussain, Prof (Dr) Rafia Shaikh, Prof (Dr) Ghulam Mustafa Sehar and Dr Iqbal Panhwar of the Sindh University.