Turning a century: Sindh Assembly assents to upgrading Hyderabad public college to varsity

Karachi

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement's (MQM) long-standing demand for establishment of a public sector university in Hyderabad seemed to have bore fruit on Tuesday as the Sindh Assembly passed a unanimous resolution for upgrading Government College Kali Mori, Hyderabad to a university to mark the institution’s 100 years of foundation.

The resolution was moved by an MQM lawmaker from Hyderabad city, Engineer Sabir Hussain Kaimkhani, and was moved unanimously.

It states: “The government college, Kali Mori Hyderabad, is going to complete 100 years of its excellence and establishment. The House resolves that Government College Kali Mori Hyderabad should be converted into a university as done in various cities of Pakistan and after the conversion of its status, all necessities are provided with immediate effect.”

Speaking on the occasion, Engineer Kaimkhani said government colleges in Lahore, Faisalabad and Peshawar had been upgraded to universities while also maintaining the original status of these prestigious educational institutions as degree colleges.

In the same way, he said, Government College Kali Mori should also be upgraded to the status of a university while keeping in demand the longstanding demand of residents of Hyderabad city for having a public university in the second largest town of the province.

Muttahida’s parliamentary leader Syed Sardar Ahmed said it was highly lamentable that Hyderabad district had been doing without a single public sector university. He said the Sindh University had been established in Karachi but was later shifted to Hyderabad, and then to Jamshro.

“Similar is the status of Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, which was initially established in Hyderabad but was later shifted to Jamshoro,” he said.

“We have a precedent in the form of the historical Sindh Madressat-ul-Islam in Karachi that got upgraded from the status of a school to a college, and then finally to a full-fledged university even though it was in the middle of the city and there was limited space.

On the other hand, Govt College Kali Mori has ample space at its campus and its location away from Hyderabad city is also ideal for establishing a proper university campus that can have a hostel for prospective students from other cities.”

Sindh Senior Minister for Education Nisar Ahmed Khuhro said while speaking on the resolution it was indeed a fact that Hyderabad had been without a single public sector university. However, he said, district Hyderabad had also been fragmented into smaller districts, and one of the newly-formed districts Tandojam housed the Sindh Agriculture University.

He said Government College Kali Mori will be commemorating the centennial year of its foundation in 2017 and functions for celebrations in this regard will commence from later this year with help from the provincial education department.

Sindh Environment Minister Dr Sikandar Mandhro suggested moving a bill in the House, as was the appropriate way.

Meanwhile, members of the Sindh Assembly also unanimously passed a resolution moved by an MPA of Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, Nusrat Seher Abbasi, calling upon the government for timely provision of bags to wheat growers in the province.

In her private resolution submitted, she stated that despite different announcement by the government and opening up of wheat procurement centres, growers were not getting bags and were being forced to sell their wheat to government-sponsored traders.

She and other opposition MPAs alleged that the provincial government had been giving monetary benefit to some influential growers and farmers who were politically connected as the others suffered.

Sindh food minister Nasir Hussain Shah replied that his department will procure 1.1 metric tons of wheat this year while the production of wheat in the province was expected to be around 6 million metric tons.

He said federally-run Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation Limited (PASSCO) was being approached to procure 255,000 metric tons of wheat from Sindh as being the due procurement share allocated to the province, but so far PASSCO had agreed to buy 100,000 tons of wheat from the province.

The House also referred to the privilege motion moved by an MQM MPA from Mirpurkhas, Dr Zafar Ahmed Khan Kamali, to the Sindh Assembly’s committee on rules of procedures and privileges for further consideration.

The privilege motion pertained to the incident of March 31 when police officials and personnel had raided the lawmaker’s office in his home town without any search warrant and allegedly also behaved with him.

Sindh senior minister for parliamentary affairs informed the House that the raid on March 31 had occurred in the aftermath of the violence in Mirpurkhas when Mustafa Kamal and other leaders of his newly formed political party had visited the town.  He said the police had raided the MPA’s office to arrest those involved in the clash.