MULTAN, July 3: Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool said on Thursday all apprehensions of Sindh about the Greater Thal Canal project will be removed.

Talking to newsmen here, he said there was no need to politicize a project initiated to make better use of the country’s water resources.

The governor, however, admitted that the resentment against the project in Sindh spread because of an irresponsible statement by a Punjab minister.

“We (Punjab and Sindh) will sit together to sort out the differences,” he added.

About the extradition of the wife and daughters of former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, the governor said they were deported under an agreement signed between the government and the Sharif family.

“Both law and religion demand us to abide by the agreements,” he said.

About the rising crimes wave against women especially in south Punjab, he said the provincial government had taken serious note of the situation. The law enforcement agencies had been directed to make all out efforts to check this tendency.

He said but the society should respect the rights of women.

The governor was in Multan to visit the Bahauddin Zakariya University as its chancellor. He was scheduled to come to the university at 9am but arrived there at 12.30pm “because of some technical fault developed in the plane at the 11th hour before taking off.”

The governor interacted with the university students at the executive hall of the Institute of Management Sciences, held a meeting with deans and chairmen of various departments at the committee room. He also visited the electrical engineering department of the university’s engineering college and the laboratory of the chemistry department.

The governor stressed that besides a broader outline each university should have its own local vision and agenda in order to address the problems of its area of influence through research.

He said the BZU should come up with the solutions to the problems being faced by industrial and agricultural sectors of the area. He urged the university management to also pay attention to the promotion of Seraiki language and culture of the area. He endorsed a proposal presented by Dr Anwaar Ahmed, director of the BZU Seraiki Research Centre (SRC), to set up a representative museum at the university to display antiques from the rich historical and archaeological background of the area.

The governor said that the Higher Education Commission agreed to spend Rs4 to Rs5 billion for the training of faculties and on research projects of the universities in the province.

Admitting that the government was not providing desired funds to the universities, he said the public sector was catering to almost 98 per cent higher education demands in the country.

He also underscored the need to improve quality of education in the public sector universities by focusing more on research and creativity.

Appreciating BZU endeavour to bring qualitative change in the overall learning environment, the governor termed it a ‘world class university’.

He directed the Multan district administration to cooperate with the university in all possible ways especially in setting up Fine Arts department, museum at SRC and supply of equipment to the farms of its agriculture college.

Earlier, Vice-Chancellor Dr Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry briefed the governor about the ongoing research at the university’s various departments.