KFUEIT – Historical Background

Rahim Yar Khan, a city situated extreme south of Southern Punjab, is a vibrant and progressive city. Previously known as Noshehra was named Rahim Yar Khan in 1809 by Nawab Muhammad Sadiq Khan after his first son. In 1930 the city was designated as a District Headquarter and in 1942 became an industrial zone and Cotton Centre with advent of several industrial units and factories all over the town. Two landmark factories of Abbasia Textile Mills and Sadiq Vegetable & Oil Mills (now Unilever) were established in 1950, which added more in the urbanization of the city. This urbanization continued since then and now the city is one of the modern district headquarters in Punjab with decent civic facilities and infrastructure.

Rahim Yar Khan is strategically located in an area, which is converging point of three provinces (Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan) of Pakistan. This geographical location makes this city the centre of not only the health & education but for business, trade and agriculture of Southern Punjab, Northern Sindh and Eastern Baluchistan as well. Known as one of the largest producers of cotton and sugarcane, RYK has an Agri-based economy of 65% population. Leading industrial units of RYK include Unilever, Coca Cola Beverage, FFC, 7 Sugar Mills Plants, Ahmad Oriental Textile and Ahmad Fine Textile Mill with dozens of Marble, Cotton Ginning, Flour & Oil Mills and Poultry Feed units.

This part of the province has always been struggling for development and opportunities for higher studies. The parents were forced to look for bigger cities up north or extreme south of country in order to explore higher education options for their children. The closest locations on both sides of this city having a dedicated university, Bahawalpur and Sukkur, are at a distance of around 200 km each. In this scenario, students were bound to opt for incremental expenditures in bigger cities besides academic expenses while getting exposed to severe competition against limited seats in many institutions.

In these circumstances, the establishment of very first Engineering & Information Technology University in Rahim Yar Khan is surely nothing lesser than a blessing for Southern Punjab, Northern Sindh and North Eastern Baluchistan. Established in 2014 under Punjab Assembly Act, the Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering & Information Technology (KFUEIT) Rahim Yar Khan, started its journey with merely 4 rooms, 5 faculty members and admission intake in 4 degree programs.

KFUEIT embarked upon a tremendous growth track and started elevating the ladder every year. The vibrant leadership of the Vice Chancellor along with his very young and energetic team left no stone unturned in achieving targets of decades in just few months not only in terms of physical infrastructure but in academic excellence as well. Despite lots of stumbling blocks and bottlenecks, this roller coaster journey of exponential growth did not slow down owing to untiring commitment and dedication of the Vice Chancellor and his young team.

Situated on Abu Dhabi Road Rahim Yar Khan, a beautiful and state of the art campus of KFUEIT is spread over 275 acres and is equipped with all modern facilities where more than 600 employees including 200 teaching faculty members are performing their duties in making this university a premium institution of the country in days to come. The fast-paced growth and such an increase in number of students is evident of the fact that this University is effectively serving to the needs to of the region and contributing towards the development of local economy. As per the safest estimates, KFUEIT has been able to reverse the flight of capital of around 2 billion per annum from local economy of this region, which was previously being spent in central and upper part of Pakistan.

Particularly for girls, this university is an even bigger blessing, because many of the degree programs are of great interest of female students matching their educations aspirations and future endeavors. The year 2019 has also been scheduled to be yet another successful venture for KFUEIT. After the admissions of Fall 2019, KFUEIT will register its name in leading universities of country by growing to 16 departments, 94 degree programs, over 100 PhD qualified faculty members and crossing milestone of 10,000 students.

Where KFUEIT is aggressively on its way to become a premium institution of this country in minimum possible time at one end, the severe financial crisis that is hitting this university in last one year and adversely affecting its growth on another end. With the shortage and non-releases of necessary funds from government for university, the achievement of aggressive targets seems difficult to achieve. Against all the odds, the leadership of university aims the wholesome development of students besides academic excellence and has never compromised on extracurricular activities in doing so. KFUEIT keeps arranging and hosting dozens of extracurricular activities including sports gala, seminars, exhibitions, declamation contests, Na’at and Qir’at contests, Pakistan Day, Defence Day, Kashmir Day, Eid Milad un Nabi, Dramatic Performance, Students societies and many other events within and outside the campus to develop and motivate the students.