ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday shared the master plan of his “dream knowledge city” at the Namal University, the major construction of which is expected to end by 2027.
Sharing a video on Twitter, the premier said it was his “dream to build Pakistan’s first knowledge city”.
Earlier on Saturday, PM Imran Khan had launched the first phase of the ‘knowledge city’ project to be established at the Namal University, which is located in Mianwali.
First phase to complete by 2023
The first phase would be completed by 2023 to accommodate 800 students and 50 faculty members, whereas the major construction work on the city is expected to be completed by 2027.
The knowledge city is expected to include academic blocks, libraries, technology parks, business centres, dairy farms, primary and secondary schools, sports facilities, a hospital, shopping centres, hotels, and a housing colony for staff, faculty, and students.
In another video — from back in 2005 — that he shared on his Instagram account, PM Imran is seen pointing to the Namal College building in the background and explaining how when he saw “this wilderness, I imagined a knowledge city… the sort of knowledge city like Oxford University where I went to and which inspired me”.
“And hence you see Namal College, which, in my opinion, is the beginning — God-willing — of the biggest knowledge city in Pakistan,” he says in the video.
‘A beautiful environment’
Ambitiously underlining his plan and the Namal College’s surrounding areas, he adds: “The land stretches for miles and miles ahead in this wilderness, where I hope there will be medical schools, there will be engineering schools, there will be textile schools, it would become the centre of education in Pakistan and a beautiful environment where you have a lake where the students will have recreation and then you see the salt range, one of the oldest rock structures in Pakistan, with the oldest historical monuments lying up in these ranges.
“And of course, then there’s this road which goes all the way to Islamabad and, the other way, it goes to the Indus Highway and also to the tribal areas of Pakistan,” he says.