MULTAN, June 19: The Bahauddin Zakariya University authorities have yet to submit report to Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool which he had sought eight days ago about the state of affairs of the institution's high-tech chemistry laboratory.

The laboratory was set up last year at a cost of Rs39.762 million funded by the Higher Education Commission. However, indecision at the administrative level and internal conflicts have rendered it non-functional for the last almost three months.

The laboratory was initially approved by the ministry of science and technology (MoST)in April 2001. The then chairman of the BZU chemistry department, Prof Dr Humayun Pervez, was appointed the project director. He along with Prof Dr Saeed Iqbal worked diligently to establish a state-of-the-art laboratory for postgraduate and doctoral research.

Sources at the BZU said Dr Saeed left the university due to some unfavourable circumstances and joined the newly established Sargodha University.

Later on Jan 6 last, the BZU authorities removed Dr Humayun from the chemistry department chairmanship. At this, he also expressed his inability to work as the project director for not having administrative powers after his removal from the office of chairman.

However, new chairperson Prof Dr Shahida Begum Niazi declined to take over the laboratory unless she was directed to do so by the authorities. In the meanwhile, some teachers allegedly mishandled highly sophisticated equipment at the laboratory, which prompted Dr Humayun to lock it to avoid further loss of property on March 20 last.

The university officials, however, took no interest in resolving the matter. The governor, who is also chancellor, took notice of the issue published in a daily and sought immediate report from the BZU vice-chancellor on June 10 last.

Sources disclosed that the VC surprisingly also forwarded the governor's letter to the university's legal advisers, besides sending it to the chemistry department chairperson and assistant registrar (legal). They said legal advisers were not the part of the university establishment.

"We are at a loss to understand why the VC has sent the letter about an administrative problem to the legal advisers, the sources said.