GCU teacher donates land, lifetime savings
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LAHORE: A Government College University teacher has announced donating his savings for his institution.
Dr Zaheer Ahmed Siddique, the 82-year-old eminent poet and distinguished professor of Persian language, pledged to donate his Rs140 million land and Rs5m lifetime savings to the GCU Endowment Fund Trust for the scholarships of financially challenged students.
Prof Siddique, the author of 52 books including Pakistan’s first Persian to Urdu dictionary, handed over the Rs5m cheque to Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Hasan Amir Shah here on Wednesday.
Endowment fund to spend Rs145m on deserving students
Prof Siddique’s son Naveed Siddique is the adviser to Bill Gates at Microsoft and her daughter is the professor of English literature at the FCC University, Lahore. His younger son works at an executive post with a multinational company in Pakistan.
Prof Siddique said he had initiated a legal process to transfer the land to the university.
Speaking on the occasion, Vice-Chancellor Prof Shah said the inspiring Dr Siddique, who has more than 50year meritorious services in research, administration, and teaching for GCU, had been donating all his salary to the GCU Endowment Trust since long for the fee of deserving students.
He said the nations world over had progressed by developing their universities and research institutes, but unfortunately in Pakistan the culture to support or donate the property to an education institution had yet not developed.
He said Prof Siddique had set a precedent which other would follow. “Prof Zaheer is not a rich person at all, and all he had, has been donated to the GCU Endowment Fund,” he added.
GCU Endowment Fund Trust secretary Dr Khalid Manzoor Butt said the GCU was the only public sector university in Pakistan to have an active endowment fund trust, which gives scholarships worth more than Rs20 million to deserving students every year.
He said the endowment fund never spent the principal amount but the profit earned from the principal amount was spent on financially challenged students.
Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2016
