Staff Report
LAHORE: (Wednesday, May 30, 2018) Three candidates recommended by the Search Committee to the Chief Minister Punjab for appointment of one of them as vice chancellor at University of the Punjab waited more than two hours for the final interview until they were altogether apeared before CM Punjab here on Wednesday.
The chief minister had called them for interview at 3:00pm, however, the chief minister was in Rajanpur to inaugurate health facilities. 
Finally the chief minister reached his office at 90 shah e Quaid Azam and invited them for a ”meeting style” interview.
All three candidates jointly appeared before CM.
There were some general questions about PU in a chit chat mode.
The Search Committee finalized three names for the post of PU Vice Chancellor on Tuesday and forwarded a summery to the Chief Minister Punjab for appointment of a regular vice chancellor in the university.
The candidates included former PU VC and Dean Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences Prof. Dr. Zakria Zakar, UET VC Taxila Dr. Niaz Ahmed and PU College of Information Technology Principal Dr. Mansoor Sarwar .
Dr. Zakria Zakar, a PhD of Sociology from Bielefeld University Germany, earlier served as vice chancellor University of the Punjab. He is also Senior Fulbright Fellow, Stony Brook University, USA; Democracy Fellow, Boston University, USA; Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, Germany and Robert S. McNamara Fellows, WB, Washington D.C
Dr. Niaz Ahmed, a PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of Leads UK is currently serving as vice 
chancellor UET Taxila. Earlier, he also served as Rector National Textile University Faisalabad. Professor and chairperson Institute of Quality and Technology Management in PU and vice chairman Pakistan Engineering Council.
Dr. Mansoor Sarwar, a PhD in Computer Engineering from Lowa State University, USA. He s currently serving as Principal PUCIT. Earlier, he also served as professor and chairperson at computer sciences departments
at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and University of Management and Technology (UMT).
Earlier, a total of 26 shortlisted candidates for the position of PU vice chancellor appeared for interview Monday and Tuesday for the preliminary round of interviews.
The Punjab Higher Education Department (HED) had issued letters to the selected candidates to appear before the search committee for interview. HED had scheduled the interviews of 20 candidates on Monday an
d 6 on Tuesday, however, later some additional candidates were also called for interview on Tuesday. As per the letters, the candidates have been tol
d to appear for interview at the conference room of the Arfa Software Technology Park on the given date.
According to the sources, a total 101 candidates’ names were sent to the Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) for scrutiny. While the PHEC was asked to submit maximum 40 names for interviews to the search committee, who would finalise three names as well as recommend a name from among those to the chief minister for final approval.
The scheduled was quite tight as compared to previous practice during such interviews because of the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The court had given a six weeks time to the government and five weeks have already exhausted.
The shortlisted candidates for the interview were former and current vice chancellors as well as senior academics from the Punjab University and other varsities. The interviewees include Dr Fazal Ahmad Khalid, Dr Muhammad Zakria Zakar, Dr Niaz Ahmad Akhtar, Dr Rauf-i-Azam, Dr Farhat Saleemi, Dr Shahid Kamal, Dr Shahid Munir, Dr Javed Ahmad, Dr Khalid Mahmood, Dr Muhammad Zuber, Muhammad Ashraf, Muhammad Abbas Chaudhry, Dr Muhammad Tufail, Dr Muhammad Ishtiaq Qadri, Dr Tayyab Husnain, Muhammad Iqbal, Dr Maqbool Hussain Sial, Dr Mubashar Ahmad, Dr Islam Ullah Khan, Dr Riaz Ahmad, Dr Syed Mansoor Sarwar, Syed Muhammad Awais, Dr Tahir Kamran, Dr Allah Bakhsh, Dr Tariq Mahmood Ansari and Dr Hanif Akhtar.
The search committee for the Punjab University VC includes Razzaq Dawood as convener and Dr Umar Saif, Dr Zafar Iqbal Qureshi, Fauzia Viqar as members, and HED secretary as secretary of the committee.