NED to get Rs900mn from Centre in three years

 Ahsan Iqbal inaugurates Advanced Material Testing Laboratory at NED’s Department of Earthquake Engineering 

Karachi

The federal government will provide Rs900 million in the next three years to the NED University for completing new mega projects being initiated at the university, said Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal on Wednesday while inaugurating the Advanced Material Testing Laboratory at the Department of Earthquake Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology.

He said the federal government had adopted an important policy to upgrade all engineering universities of the country and different projects had been initiated at these universities across the country.

According to him, the government has allocated Rs1500 billion to achieve the target while the federal government has also doubled the funding to improve higher education in Pakistan.  “From the year 2010 to 2013, Rs100 billion were granted for the higher education. But when the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz came in the power, the grant was increased to Rs2015 billion from the year 2013 to 2016.”

Quoting the figures of increase in grant, he said the increment showed that the party was working in the right direction and following the indicators set for its vision 2025, through which it wanted to establish “knowledge economy”.

“The majority of the country’s population comprises of youngsters and that is why we want to provide them the best education and access to technology to produce high quality human resources in the country.”

Ahsan Iqbal expressed that he was impressed with the standard of education being provided at the NED University and believed that its students could participate anywhere around the world.

He congratulated the faculty and staff for preparing students to face challenges in their lives.

The PML-N leader also assured the government’s support to universities which would play any role in national development.

The federal minister claimed that all efforts would be carried out to eradicate terrorism from the country.

He termed said terrorism was a virus and termed it the main hurdle in Pakistan’s social and economic growth and welfare.

He observed that terrorist network was well spread and it would take some time to completely eliminate them from the society.

The world deemed the Pakistani economy a failure but now our economic indicators were showing considerable improvement, he said.

Talking about the new Sindh chief minister, Iqbal said that Murad Ali Shah was a highly educated person and he would be able to play a better role for the development and success of the province and the country.

Talking about Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf Chairman Imran Khan, he said the PTI supremo should realise that Pakistan needed a long march for economic revival, not for political chaos.

Imran Khan should wait till 2018 to participate in the general elections and use his energy to build new Pakistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he added.

The federal minister also asked the PTI chairman, Imran Khan to review his statement in which he announced his plans of launching a protest against the Panama papers corruption allegations and invited him to come forward and play his part in the development of the country.