JHANG, Jan 25: The local veterinary college, which is the only institution of its kind in Pakistan other than the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS), Lahore, is on the brink of closure due to paucity of funds and indifference of the Punjab government.
The College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (CVAS), a constituent college of the UVAS, started offering classes in 2006 on the directives of Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool, who is chancellor of the UVAS.
The first batch of 60 students commenced their academics in a rented building in Satellite Town. Another group of 100 students was admitted to the college in the next session, prompting the administration to acquire another building on rent.
A permanent solution to ever-increasing demand of space for academic activities was never worked out at the initial stages. However, belatedly, a requisition was made to the government for the construction of a purpose-built campus.
Though PC-I of the project has been approved and 75 acres of land acquired for the purpose and transferred to the college for the construction of campus, an amount of Rs485 million required for the purpose is yet to be released by the government, mainly because of scarcity of funds.
Half of the required amount was to be funded by the Higher Education Commission (HEC), which was, however, prepared to release its share of the promised amount any time, it was the provincial government alone showing reluctance to discharge its part of the responsibility, CVAS sources told Dawn.
Sources said master plan of the college was prepared by renowned architect of the country, Pervaiz Vandal, and the college paid him Rs6 million as consultancy fee out of the Rs20 million seed money released by the Punjab government to run the college at initial stages.
According to sources, Rs16 million had been spent out of this seed money since the inception of the college.
The college has no financial resources at its disposal now to pay even the monthly rent of the two rented buildings or to pay honorarium to visiting professors and other expenses amounting to Rs579,500 per month, indicating the closure of the college any time in near future.
Students, parents and teachers have urged the governor to immediately arrange funds from the supplementary grant to save the college’s closure.
When contacted, UVAS Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Nawaz admitted that the Jhang CVAS was facing serious financial crunch. He said the university as well as the Punjab government was cognizant of the fact that the college administration was compelled to use the seed money to sustain. He said major portion of the seed money had been consumed in running the college in two rented buildings.
He said the good news was that the HEC had approved construction of college’s new purpose-built building as a mega project of the UVAS. He said the Punjab government and the HEC would share 50 per cent each of the total cost. “The release of funds by the Punjab government as well as the HEC is now a matter of days,” he added.