ISLAMABAD: The land grabbers continue to encroach upon the land of the Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) with impunity right under the nose of the federal government.
Besides Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) stalwart and former Senate chairman Nayyar Hussain Bokhari, who allegedly grabbed major portion of the university land, there are a total of 11 other major land grabbers who encroached upon the valuable land of the university mainly because the Capital Development Authority (CDA) failed to demarcate their land.
These startling revelations were made during the meeting of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Federal Education and Professional Training, which met with Col (retd) Dr Amirullah Marwat in the chair here on Wednesday. The meeting was attended by Education Minister Balighur Rehman along with others.
The list of local land grabbers’ communities included Dhoke Ghangi, Kot Hathial, Jhangi Bagial, Dhoke Banjial, Dhoke Banjran, Sihalian, Mohra Shah Wali, Parri, Jabbri and Afghani.
The QAU administration alleged that these villagers occupied hitherto a total of 1,016 Kanals of university land, whereas the locals grabbed 86 Kanals for agricultural purpose. The committee was informed that another 60 Kanals had been occupied by the influential encroachers in 2016.
The committee expressed serious reservations over the non-retrieval of the land and gave a period of 45 days for reclaiming it. The committee asked the CDA to demarcate the actual land of QAU within 45 days to resolve the issue once and for all.
The QAU administration informed the committee that currently, the university is facing a discrepancy of 450 acres of land as per scaling done by Survey of Pakistan (SOP) in September last year. The varsity currently has 1,507 acres of land out of the 1,709 acres allotted to it by the CDA in 1967-72.
On the demarcation issue, the CDA officials gave assurance to the committee that the demarcation of land would be completed within the given time-frame of 45 days.
During the meeting, the QAU Vice Chancellor Javed Ashraf, without naming any encroacher, complained that whenever they tried to stop the fresh encroachers, they faced strong resistance from them and were threatened of dire consequences.
Education Minister Balighur Rehman, however, questioned whether they had ever registered an FIR with police against such people. The university official informed that they didn’t, upon which Baligh said that it is a failure on the part of the university administration as the departments concerned would not be able to take action.
The Islamabad deputy commissioner (DC) informed the committee that he always supported the university administration on the issue.
Talking about the pathetic condition of the university, the chairman of the committee expressed that it did not look like a top-ranked university, rather a cattle pen, because cattle could be seen everywhere in the premises. He added that such intuitions are national assets, hence they should be taken care of.
During the meeting, the lawmakers raised a question that the number of universities is increasing rapidly without taking into consideration the quality of education. Responding to it, Higher Education Commission (HEC) officials said that there are over 188 HEC recognised universities, while there are about 4,000 affiliated colleges.
The committee was informed that the female students’ ratio in varsities is 32 per cent, which is expected to increase in the time to come. Furthermore, there are around 14 women performing their duties as vice-chancellors in various universities.
A member of the committee said that how the standard of education would be improved when people like Dr Asim have been appointed as Sindh HEC chairman.
The HEC chairman said that he wanted to share some bitter facts about how the system was being run, adding that there are some prominent personalities responsible for bringing the system to such a situation.
The committee chairman accepted the request of HEC chairman for an in-camera briefing to the committee on February 8.
The committee expressed anger over non-presence of Islamabad commissioner and CDA member estate in the meeting and directed them to ensure their presence at the next meeting.
