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Delay in polytechnic institute feared in Chitral

By Zahiruddin

CHITRAL: The establishment of a polytechnic institute in Chitral remains a dream for another year as the building is unlikely to be completed by the month of June, sources in the works and services department told chitraltimes.com here on Thursday. The sources said that the scheme of the construction of the building is short of 6 million rupees for which the finance department has been approached which is yet to be entertained. The estimated cost of the building is 78.530 million rupees and work on it was started on three years ago and its stipulated time of completion was June 2008 but it was delayed by one year due to the slow pace of work. The people of Chitral had attached importance to the establishment of the polytechnic institute as there is no any institution for technical education in the whole district. A resident said that Chitral is the only district in the province having no polytechnic institute while the last federal government had launched a scheme of providing every district of the country with such an institute and for this purpose it had planned to establish 105 numbers of such colleges. He said that after passing matriculation examination, the students have to go to other neighboring districts to seek admission in the classes of associate engineering but very few seats are made available to them. He said that classes were to be commenced in the polytechnic institute right from this year but it could not be possible due to the negligence of the works and services department which executes the project of its construction. Sources in the finance department said that due to the slow progress in the construction work, some of its funds were diverted to another district which caused to the shortage of funds for it as it now requires six million rupees. The technical departments like works and services, irrigation, water management, tehsil municipal administrations, water supply and sanitation, WAPDA, PTCL, the number of technical employees is negligible, a resident said adding that this is due to the nonexistence of technical institution in the district. He slammed the successive governments for ignoring the district in the field of technical education for long. Sources in the department of technical education said that initially diploma classes of three years duration were scheduled in four different technologies of civil, mechanical, electrical and information technology. The residents of Chitral have demanded of the government to release funds to ensure the completion of the work before the month of June this year and start classes here during the current academic year.