PESHAWAR, Oct 23: The University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, during last few years, has grown into six campuses but it is still short of space to accommodate all students applying for admissions each year, says Vice-Chancellor Syed Imtiaz Hussain Gilani.

`It used to be a quiet campus. Students were few and it was easy to accommodate them in classrooms and hostels. It was a completely different world as compared to today,` recalls Mr Gilani, who had been a student of the then Faculty of Engineering of the University of Peshawar from 1964 to 1968.

It was on October 23, 1980 when the faculty of Engineering of UoP was converted into NWFP University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar.

Now called University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Peshawar, the institu-tion celebrated its 33rd foundation day with the theme `Past, present and future`, where the vice-chancellor and senior faculty members shared their views about its various aspects including its history, achievements and impediments faced in the beginning.

However, Mr Gilani, who has been working as its vicechancellor for the last 10 years, said that the number of students applying for admissions every year was increasing but there was not enough space to accommodate them on the main campus.

`This year we received 15,000 applications but we had to select only 1,500 high scorers,` he said. He banked on the Jalozai campus for accommodating 3,200 students, who would be taught by 200 PhD teachers.

Around 3,000 students are already studying in Peshawar, Mardan, Bannu, Kohat and Abbottabad campuses of UET.

Mr Gilani said that workcould not be completed so far on Jalozai campus, the biggest project of UET so far, owing to payment issues. The presence of a camp for internally displaced persons from tribal areas also created security concerns for the students and faculty of Jalozai campus, he added.

`The students of the first semester are attending classes on the main campus and we hope to start classes in the next semester (Feb 2014) at Jalozai but security concerns are also hampering our plan of shifting to the campus,` he said.

Mr Gilani said that UET was fast maturing into an institution where research was conducted. The young teachers and students were able to get grants of almost Rs150 million through competitive process every year, he said.

`Our university is engaged with the provincial government departments, strategic organisations and industry, he said proudly.

The vice-chancellor saidthat university should not only award degrees but should also develop economy, give input in public policy and help develop communities.

There were 16 departments in UET and about 85 PhD teachers while 82 were pursuing PhDs abroad and they would return to serve their country, he said.

Mr Gilani said that UET achieved highest development portfolio of Rs9.56 billion amongst Khyber Pahtunkhwa`s public sector universities. Through the development fund, he said, the university established four centres of excellence in which the Earthquake Engineering Centre made tremendous achievements.

The faculty is actively involved in state of the art research and engaged in installation of equipment at this centre with which Pakistan will soon become fourth country in the world having stateof-the-art seismic equipment (Shake Table).