HYDERABAD: Establishment of a medical college would keep eluding students of Hyderabad and its adjoining districts, who are aspiring for professional education within their own district, as Sindh government has decided to hand over a medical college building in the city to the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) on an ‘as is where is’ basis despite the latter’s unwillingness.

The college project costing over Rs1.394bn was approved in the financial year 2012-13 and 90pc physical progress had been made. The completion was delayed due to belated releases of funds. An expenditure of Rs974.297m had already been incurred on the building that has remained unused so far.

“We can at the most manage dialysis services in Hyderabad. Even otherwise we are a postgraduate, not undergraduate, institution,” said an SIUT official. “We are not willing to accept the building but Sindh government wants us to do this. It’s very, very difficult on our part,” he remarked while requesting anonymity.

“SIUT is also aware of the fact that this is a college building meant for medical education of students of Hyderabad and its adjoining districts. But Sindh government is pressing us to take it over,” said the official. He said the SIUT could best run a dialysis centre.

Sindh government, in fact, provides funds to SIUT for urology and transplantation services. The institute wants to establish only a dialysis centre for Hyderabad to lessen burden of patients from lower Sindh region who have to approach the SIUT Karachi. Its team has paid multiple visits to Hyderabad and inspected a number of buildings for starting dialysis facilities in the city. But it has not taken a final decision as yet.

Sindh government, in the meantime, has come up with the decision of handing over the medical college building to the SIUT. The process was started in August and the Sindh chief minister approved the summary in October.

The government got a summary moved through health secretary Kazim Jatoi in August, mentioning that “90pc physical progress has been reported by project director”. Mr Jatoi stated that the execution of medical college scheme could not be done due to Covid-19 situation in 2019-20. He further stated that a sum of Rs10.944m were allocated for FY2020-21 as against throw forward of Rs416.077m.

Mr Jatoi proposed that “CM Sindh may like to accord permission for handing over of building of Hyderabad Medical College to SIUT on ‘as is where is‘ basis so that SIUT can complete the scheme as per their requirements and standards after finalization of other operational modalities including memorandum of understanding (MoU)”.

Outgoing chairman of the Planning and Development Board Mohammad Waseem had mentioned in the summary that “with proposed handing over on ‘as is and where is basis’, health department may also need to explore commitment of SIUT to bear cost of remaining works assessed by SIUT as being essential. Alternatively, infrastructure, on which as mentioned above 90pc progress had been accomplished and for which balance of approved civil works cost has been provided in ADP 2020-21, may be expeditiously completed by health department in accordance with provisions of approved PC-I and in consultation with SIUT”.

The finance secretary then recommended that “for transfer of Medical College Hyderabad on ‘as is and where is basis’, health department and SIUT may finalize an agreement where all the key roles and responsibilities of parties are formalized”.

The scheme’s papers show that it was approved when PPP had formed its coalition government with MQM in 2008. The latter quit the government in 2012 due to differences over dual local government law. The funds were released for the scheme but later Sindh government apparently had a second thought and came up with this proposal of handing over the college to the SIUT.

People of Hyderabad had been aspiring for a general university as well as medical, engineering and other professional colleges for as long as one could remember.

Sindh government had only upgraded the Govt College Kali Mori in Oct 2017 as a general university. The federal government got a bill passed on Nov 17 during a joint session of the parliament for the establishment of the ‘Hyderabad Institute for Technology and Management Sciences’ which was tabled by Sabir Kaimkhani, an MNA from Hyderabad.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2021