BANNU, Sept 24: The only postgraduate college in the city is facing shortage of staff and equipment and its building is in need of repair.

Constructed in 1982, the college offers courses in mathematics, economics, botany, political science, chemistry and English.

The masters in computer science programme was approved for the college by the Higher Education Commission in 2000 and applications were invited for admissions but the process was not completed.

The masters classes are held in two hostels of the college because of lack of accommodation. The college has been allocated Rs700,000 for laboratory equipment but five of its labs have been closed. Sources said the college building's design included a third storey but that had not been constructed.

They said Japan had donated 58 Pentium-IV computers for the college in February but those were lying packed in a store. In December2003 the college was granted Rs21.62 million for the construction of an information technology block and maintenance of its building but the conditions had not improved, they said.

They said the building badly needed repair and the doors of most of the 50 classrooms were broken. They said 18 classrooms were kept closed due to lack of repair and furniture. The college received Rs141,424 in 2002-03 and Rs200,000 in 2003-04 for furniture, they said.

The college dispensary had no medicine or first-aid facility and the library lacked books as most of those acquired had been lost or misplaced, they said and added that the reading room was seldom opened for students.

The college started publishing a students' magazine 'Kurram' in 1995 but stopped its publication after three years. It received about Rs500,000 annually for the magazine, they sources said.

The college's principal Mohammad Hakim said several letters had been sent to the construction and works department for the repair and maintenance of the building but none of those was entertained. "We have 24 vacant seats of professors and we have sent letters to the authorities to remove this deficiency, but no positive response was given," he said.

Giving reasons for holding classes in the hostels, he said the administration feared that those would be occupied by the workers of students' federations affiliated with political parties. He said the administration was purchasing chairs for classrooms at Rs1,200 per chair while those were available at Rs300 in the market.