Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Due to the negligence of those at the helms of the affairs in the provincial government, the lone Government Technical & Vocational Centre (GTVC) for boys, at Samarbagh Dir Lower, has been closed for the last 10 years compelling the local male students to travel to far flung districts to get technical and vocational education.

Talking to Daily Times Insaf Student Federation (ISF) President from Dir lower, Asfandyar Khan said, that the college had been established 10 years ago during the government of the Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA) in the province.

The college establishment cost Rs 5 million but the successive government of Khyber Pkahtunkhwa (KP) failed to open the college for technical learning in the area, Asfandyar added.

He said that the facilities of technical education in lower Dir were equal to none as the lone learning facility for the aspiring students had been closed. He said that appointments in the college for the different posts ranging from class IV to Principal had already been made by the MMA and Awami National Party (ANP) and JI during the course of 10 years but the college was yet to be made open for the the students.

A district council member, while pleading anonymity said, that most of the staff in the college had been hired on political basis by the JI and the ANP during their successive governments but they failed to take any steps to open the college for learning.

People who were displaced in the area due to floods had been taking shelter at the college and the sanitation and electric system has completely been damaged during the IDPs stay, the councillor said.

As per the documents available with Daily Times Jamaat-e-Islami in 2014-15, granted Rs 20, 000 to Rs100, 000 to 39 mosques in Lower Dir while 22 mosques in Upper Dir were given Rs20,000 to Rs 50, 000.

Saleemullah, a local resident of Samerbagh, told the scribe that the JI had turned a blind eye towards the development of the area particularly education.

Ironically, instead of spending funds to help the students of the area to get technical education, the next year the JI again provided Rs 1.5 million to mosques as grants but ignored opening the lone government college for technical education.