KMDC to get status of the university

Karachi, Karachi Medical and Dental College (KMDC) has will be upgraded to a university, Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan revealed this news at its convocation.

Degrees were awarded to around 200 MBBS and 100 BDS graduates, for years 2009 to 2012, at the college campus. Sixteen batches of MBBS and BDS, with 100 percent results have passed out of the college since its inception in 1991.

Besides upgrading KMDC to a university, the governor also announced making the current principal, Prof Waqar H. Husain Kazmi, the university’s first vice chancellor and will be allocated Rs100 million as initial money for the university.

Rs100 million will be used as seed money to be produced for the new university, besides approving the plan for establishing an IT and video conferencing lab, an auditorium, an administrative block and a 10-storey building, he said.  He also requested the city administrator to find at least five appropriate pieces of land for the university centres.

Dr Ibad said that he had been very fortunate as far as upgrading of colleges in the province was concerned.

He further explained that there were some 23 or 24 universities before he was governor but now there are around 50. My own alma mater the Dow Medical College, which is now the Dow University of Health Sciences, and the father of the nation, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s school, the Sindh Madressahtul Islam, now the Sindh Madressahtul Islam University are part of the list of colleges which I am proud to have upgraded to universities, he said.

Now the status of this medical and dental college, the only one under the administration of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation will be changed in the coming two weeks.

The governor reminded how land for KMDC had been acquired in 1990. Taking procession of this land from encroachers was a very difficult task.

This actual land used to produce criminals once but now it is producing extraordinary human resource in the shape of you doctors, he said while addressing the students. The governor also announced a reward of Rs25,000 each for the gold medalists of four years.

The KMDC principal Prof Kazmi said that the number of seats had been increased to 350 per year from 150 per year. This way we will be able to give admissions to 250 medical and 100 dental students strictly on merit, he said.

The vice chancellor of Karachi University, Prof Muhammad Qaiser, also announced a two-year masters program in public health for the college. KMC administrator, Mr Muhammad Hussain Syed, Dr Sagheer Ahmed, Prof Aqueel Ahmed Shaikh and Prof Dr Nargis Anjum also
spoke on the occasion.