Lahore, March 25: The setting up of the Baba Guru Nanak University under a Rs 5 billion project in Pakistan’s Nankana Sahib, the birth place of the founder of the Sikh religion near here, has been delayed due to bureaucratic hurdles.
After years of promises, the Pakistan government had announced in November last year that it would establish the university as an institute of international learning on 2,500 acres of land in Nankana Sahib, located 80 kms from Lahore.
Official sources said the project had not taken off due to “bureaucratic hurdles”.
The Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), which maintains shrines and properties of Pakistan’s minority communities, is also facing problems in generating funds for the project, sources said.
An amount of Rs 5 billion is required for the project.
ETPB chairman Syed Asif Hashmi said: “Yes, there are some problems at the moment but hopefully Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will lay the university’s foundation stone in the middle of this year.”
Since the university is a huge project, such “glitches” could not be ruled out, Hashmi said.
“We will make the university an institute of international learning and foreign faculty will also be hired, including from India,” he said.
The ETPB will provide land and arrange funds for the project, which is expected to be completed three years after its launch.
Hashmi said the ETPB would make Nankana Sahib an international city and a five-star hotel and an airport would be built there to facilitate the thousands of pilgrims who visit Guru Nanak’s birth place.
–PTI