For the improvement of Government College University (GCU) Lahore, the federal and provincial governments have launched four development projects totaling Rs 1,840.75 million.
Only Rs. 410 million of the highest ever development funds allocation for GCU is set aside for the fiscal year 2021-22.
Phase-II of the GCU’s New Campus was approved by the Federal Ministry of Planning and Development for Rs. 1158 million. Punjab’s Annual Development Program (ADP) 2021-22 includes the remaining three projects. The cost of the Girls’ Hostel, Swimming Pool, and Sufism Center, respectively, is Rs. 440 million, Rs. 143.278 million, and Rs. 100 million.
The Sheikh Abul Hasan Ash-Shadhili Sufism, Science & Technology Research Centre is the most visible of the projects.
The development of a ladies’ hostel on the main campus will also satisfy a long-standing desire from GCU’s female students, and the addition of a swimming pool will provide GCU with excellent possibilities to organise international swimming competitions.
According to Vice-Chancellor Prof. Dr. Asghar Zaidi, GCU is Pakistan’s most prestigious and oldest institution of higher learning, but it has long been neglected by successive administrations in terms of student amenities and expansion. He claims that a campus that was designed for a few thousand students now has over 14,000 students studying in over 30 disciplines.
He claimed that while ladies from all over Pakistan come to GCU for higher education, the university only has one girls’ dormitory with a capacity of less than 200 students, forcing hundreds of students to live in private female hostels away from campus.
The Vice-Chancellor announced that a new four-story girls’ hostel with a capacity of more than 300 students would be built at the University’s Science Block.
“It may come as a surprise to everyone that GCU has won intercollegiate and interuniversity swimming championships, but our students do not have access to a swimming pool,” Prof. Zaidi explained, adding that “we have to ask other universities to provide their pools for our teams’ training, which we get for a very short time on their terms and conditions.”
