HYDERABAD, July 17: Renowned scholar and educationist Professor Qavi Ahmed has appealed to philanthropists and the private sector to join hands with the government in extending health and education facilities to the underprivileged.

Speaking at the biennial general body meeting of the Anti-TB Association, Hyderabad, in Unit No. 2 Latifabad, on Sunday night, he said that at present the government was spending only 2.4 per cent of its total budget on education and 1.6 per cent on the health sector due to its own compulsions and it could not meet the demand of poor people.

He said that individuals and organizations, who can afford, were morally bound to come forward and supplement government efforts in mitigating the sufferings of the down trodden masses.

Lauding the services rendered by the district Anti-TB Association for providing free medical facilities to poor people, Professor Naqvi appealed to philanthropists to extend financial help to the association in completing its project of 100-bed hospital in Latifabad.

The taluka nazim of Latifabad, Engineer Sabir Hussain Kaimkhani, speaking as chief guest said that the MQM believed in the service of humanity and recounted the services of his party in Badin district during cyclone disaster and in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the Northern Areas during the hours of distress emerging out of the earthquake.

He said that it was because of these services to the people that the MQM secured two seats in the Azad Kashmir Assembly.

He said that the public-private partnership was the policy of every government in the world as such the government was also following this policy from the federal to local government level.

Dr Abdul Samad Shaikh, president of the District Anti-TB Association, in his welcome address and annual report said that his organization has planned to establish a 100-bed hospital in Latifabad and added that the ground work on the project would be initiated within two to three weeks’ time.

He said that recently an Asthma Care Centre was established, an ultrasound machine installed, and the Direct Observing Treatment (DOT) short course was in the TB centre where medical facilities were being provided at a nominal charge and free of cost to poor patients.

VARSITY RULE: Vice-chancellor of the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology Jamshoro, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan Rajput, has directed all the heads of teaching institutes and departments of the university to take classes regularly even if one single student is present in the classroom.