PESHAWAR, March 30: Classes at the Hyderabad girls campus of the Khyber Medical College (KMC) will start from April 11 officials said. ?The infrastructure for the first-ever girls campus of the college has been put in place. We are all set to start classes there on April 11,? said an official.

He said that the decision was taken at a high-level meeting held recently in view of the fact that library, laboratories, demonstration rooms have been set up and appointment of staff, including demonstrators and support personnel had been completed.

The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) government had announced in June 2003 the establishment of the separate girls? campus of the KMC with a view to enabling female students of the college to study in a segregated environment.

For this purpose, the government had allocated an amount of Rs184million. A block was hired at an annual rent of Rs2.9million at the PDA building wherein civil work was carried out. Initially, the government had planned to enrol a total of 50 female students in the session 2005-6. Out of the total number of students, according to plan, 40 female students were supposed to be shifted to the new girls campus from the KMC, while the remaining 10 seats were to be filled from the quota reserved for foreign students.

According to the plan, it had been proposed that 40-girl students from the bottom of the merit list of the KMC would be shifted to the new campus, which had created restlessness among the female students, who thought that the government itself was underestimating the girl campus by sending the girl students from the bottom of the merit list. ?A strong lobby was actively involved in a campaign to foil the plan of establishing a separate girls campus,? said a source.