GUJRAT: The Punjab government has approved the construction of the first-ever academic block of the Nawaz Sharif Medical College (NSMC), a constituent college of the University of Gujrat (UoG), and a sum of about Rs700m has also been allocated for the project to be executed in the current fiscal year.

Though the college was established in a separate block, dedicated for it, at the UoG’s Hafiz Hayat Campus in 2009 and the classes started in 2010, the NSMC had been without its own purpose-built building which could not be built due to funds shortage.

However, the Punjab government has now agreed to build a separate academic block of the medical college as a local PML-N lawmaker persuaded the chief minister to approve the college’s own building.

The PML-N lawmaker wanted to match his efforts for the medical college in Gujrat with that of PML-Q leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi’s who had founded the UoG in 2004 during his stint as the CM.

The land located along the UoG had been acquired at the cost of about Rs140m and work on a hostel, residences for the faculty and other staff members is yet to be completed.

The former vice chancellor of UoG, Muhammad Nizamuddin, who was the first project director of the NSMC, would often say that the dream of establishment of the medical college could never have materialised if the UoG did not exist and it was due to Dr Nizam’s efforts that the NSMC became the constituent college of the UoG and dedicated an academic block at the Hafiz Hayat Campus to it so that the classes could start forthwith.

Gujrat District Coordination Officer Liaqat Ali Chatha has now been made the project director of the NSMC after the retirement of UoG VC Dr Nizam a month ago and he was assigned with the task of making estimates as well as PC-1.

The DCO has prepared the PC-1/cost estimate of the project and a summary has formally been submitted to the competent authority through the relevant departments of health and planning and development as a sum of Rs700m has been estimated for the construction of the building, adjacent to the under construction hostel and residences of the NSMC.

The machinery and equipments purchased for the NSMC for the academic purpose has not been installed at the dedicated block since they require specific rooms and halls and this is the reason for the construction of a purpose-built academic block of the medical college.

Published in Dawn, November 4th , 2014