Staff Report
LAHORE: The Punjab government has made significant changes in the Lahore Knowledge Park management changing its Managing Director and adding some new members to the board including Dr Zafar Iqbal Qureshi.
according to the details, Punjab Procurement Regulatory Authority Managing Director Ali Bahadur Qazi has been assigned additional charge of the Chief Executive Officer of the Lahore Knowledge Park Company (LKPC). The Punjab government has also expanded the Board of Governors (BOGs) of the LKPC.
The new members added to the BoG includes, Prof Zafar Iqbal Qureshi, Dr Faisal Masood and Dr Kamran Shams. According to a media statement, “the step has been taken to make LKPC more dynamic and vibrant which would be able to implement the mega project of Lahore Knowledge Park to be established on government land comprising 852 acres at Dera Rakh Chahal adjacent to Pakistan Kidney & Liver Transplant Institute, Bedian Road Lahore”.
The total expenditure to complete the proposed project of the LKPC has been estimated at Rs100 billion which would be accomplish in four packages within a period of three years with the active participation of internationally reputed educational and health institutions. The project has been envisaged to establish engineering, medical and ICT hub with 20 percent equity from the government of Punjab in the shape of land and remaining 80 percent equity from the world acclaimed universities who would establish their sub-campuses in Lahore Knowledge Park.
Punjab Additional Chief Secretary Shamail Ahmad Khawaja, while presiding over a meeting to review the progress in survey work according to the revised master plan of Lahore Knowledge Park directed the new Chief Executive Officer Lahore Knowledge Park Company and his fellow technical staff to get initiated the civil works of basic road network, sewerage, boundary wall and other necessary infrastructure like construction of super market, central zone and public transport parking zone to attract the foreign investment from the widely acclaimed universities especially that of Biotech and ICT universities on public private partnership basis.
The meeting reviewed in detail the scope of work and timelines of various phases of Lahore Knowledge Park in line with the vision of Chief Minister Punjab Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif in this connection. So for, various renowned health universities and engineering universities from USA, Great Britain, Italy, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, Turkey and Germany have sent their letters of interest to establish their campuses in Lahore Knowledge Park.
Present in the meeting were Managing Director Punjab Procurement Regulatory Authority Ali Bahadur Qazi, Special Secretary Higher Education Department Punjab Tahir Yousaf, Additional Secretary Muhammad Ajmal Bhatti, General Manager HR Lahore Knowledge Park Company Farid Iqbal, Senior Manager (Corporate Affairs) MS Tayyaba Kamal, Senior Manager (Business Development) Asim Mushtaq, Senior Staff Members Muhammad Nasir, Muhammad Rashid, Lt. Col. (R) Tariq Aman, Additional Secretary (Welfare) S&GAD Danish Afzaal and Additional Secretary (Transport) S&GAD Ashiq Hussain Olakh.