Wakf Board plans to start medical, engineering colleges

The Karnataka State Board of Wakfs is all set to set up its own engineering and medical colleges in Bangalore and Mulbagal of Kolar district, respectively.

Addressing reporters on Tuesday, R Abdul Reyaz Khan, chairman of the Board, said the decision to set up colleges was taken at the recent Board meeting. “The Board wants to set up its own educational institutions on the lines of the Haryana Wakf Board. The engineering college is planned near Yelahanka in Bangalore,” he said.

He said that a decision was also taken to generate revenue from the 150 commercially-viable Wakf properties in the State, 10 of which are in Bangalore. He said each of these properties had the potential to earn between Rs 50 lakh and Rs one crore a month.

Education purposes

He said that the Board was giving impetus to education and that 30 per cent of the revenue generated from these properties would be reserved for education purposes.

Rubbishing the allegations made against the Board by Karnataka Minorities Commission chairperson Anwar Manippady recently, Khan said the Board was in the process of filing a defamation suit against him.

Khan said the Board or its officials had not made any attempt to destroy or tamper with the property files.

“There is no truth in the allegations made by Manippady, he shouldn’t be speaking so recklessly. The first and second floors of the Board’s building are being renovated. Hence, the one lakh-odd files have been kept in one room. The files are being segregated district wise, year wise and subject wise.

The State Secretariat Training Institute has trained our personnel to number and maintain the files. When we have taken all these measures, Manippady has been going to the media with false allegations, to further his interests. We will definitely file charges against him,” he said, adding that there was 24-hour vigil to ensure that the files weren’t manhandled.

He said it had been established that there were 40,725 Wakf properties in the State on 1,14,994 acres and 26 guntas of land.

Of this, 51,742 acres had been encroached by private players and about 20,000 acres were encroached by government institutions.