MULTAN, Feb 15: The district administration has reportedly asked the education department to hand over the nine postgraduate departments working at the Government College for Boys to the recently-established sub-campus of the Bahauddin Zakariya University in Dera.

Sources said Dera DCO Pervaiz Khusro, in a letter to the Punjab education secretary, had also proposed handing over of the building of the postgraduate block to the university's sub-campus along with furniture and equipment.

The step would help upgrade BZU's Dera campus to the university level. He informed the secretary that 900 acres had been selected for the purpose, and the PC-1 in this regard was under preparation.

The BZU had started MBA classes on Feb 10 this year at its Dera sub-campus. Sub-campus project director Prof Dr Zahoor Ahmad said MBA (executive) classes would be started from summer vacation and the BBA course in September. He said the university had announced 40 open merit and 10 self-finance seats for MBA, and received 200 applications for the same.

There is a great potential for the establishment of a university in the area as the Dera district is situated in the heart of the country adjacent to Balochistan and the NWFP while the border of Sindh is within a couple of hours drive.

He said the establishment of BZU sub-campus in Dera was a first step to make higher education accessible to the people of this belt. He also supported the idea of handing over the nine post-graduate departments of Dera college to the BZU sub-campus.

The postgraduate departments working at the college are English, Urdu, Islamiat, political science, mathematics, physics, zoology, botany and economics while the approval for the departments of chemistry, electronics and computer sciences was under consideration of the authorities concerned.

As the building of the BZU sub-campus has yet to be constructed, the MBA classes have been started in an abandoned hostel of the Dera college while the premises of its central library at the postgraduate block is being used as administrative block.