ISLAMABAD: The government is all set to establish two universities in the Balochistan province to facilitate enrolment of about 4,000 students in higher education during next five to ten years.
"One university would be established in Turbat with a total cost of Rs. 1555.391 million and another at Loralai with cost of Rs.1493.751 million," sources told APP adding the aim is to promote higher education in comparatively backward areas of the country.
Giving break-up, the sources said that the objective of establishing these universities is to provide better opportunities of higher education to the students of Turbat, Loralai and the adjoining districts of Panjgur, Awaran, Gwadar, Barkhan, Kohlu, Musakhel, killa Saifullah, Zhob and Ziarat.
"As a result of implementation of these projects, the enrolment of the students at graduation, masters, M.Phil and Ph.D level will increase considerably," the sources added.
Initially nine programmes in eight departments have been proposed with total enrolment of 1500-2000 in each university in the next 5-10 years.
The programmes include, BBA, BCS, B.Ed, B.com, Master in Education, 2-year master programme in local languages, two-year master programme in English language, 2-year master programme in Political Sciences and 2-year programme in Mathematics.
The provincial government has already provided 1000 acres land for development of all proposed facilities at Turbat University and 500 acres for the Loralai University.
The annual recurring expenditure for Turbat University has been estimated at Rs. 165.654 million where as annual income after completion has been calculated at Rs. 147.6 million.
Similarly, the annual recurring expenditure and annual income after completion of the Loralai University have been estimated same as in the Turbat University.
Period of completion for establishing both the universities have been fixed 48 months, the sources added.
Giving further break-up of the expenditures for establishing Turbat University, the sources said that the total funding of the project include Rs.1357.831 million local and Rs.197.56 million foreign exchange component.
Similarly, the expenditure of Loralai university includes Rs.1296.192 million local and Rs 197.560 million as foreign exchange component. The major expenditures include civil works including external development and consultancy for which Rs.1020.726 million have been estimated for Turbat University and Rs.976.59 million for Loralai University.
Similarly, Rs.253.354 million each have been estimated for the development of human resource development at both the universities. Rs.37.585 million each for networking, computerization and automation, Rs.12.45 million each for office and teaching equipment, Rs. 27.633 million each for furniture and fixture, Rs.30 million each for books and journals, Rs 21.749 million each for faculty salaries during project execution, Rs.8.877 each for administrative salary during project execution, Rs.42.03 million each for transport and security system where as Rs.26 million have been estimated as operational cost to initiate academic in rented or borrowed building till campus building is completed.
The expenditure for project staff for execution have been estimated Rs. 37.051 for Turbat University and Rs. 21.051 million for Loralai University, the sources added.
The funding for establishing both the universities would come from the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) allocations of Higher Education Commission (HEC).
It is pertinent to mention here that the Central Development Party (CDWP) recently approved as many as 68 projects costing Rs. 170.4 billion, with special focus on Balochistan province for which as many as 26 projects were approved.
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