PESHAWAR: The Excise and Taxation Department has sealed the office of Educational Testing and Evaluation Agency (ETEA) in Peshawar over non-payment of property tax.

A spokesman for Excise and Taxation Department said ETEA has to pay about Rs20 million in the head of property tax. The spokesman said the ETEA office in Peshawar has been sealed over non-payment of tax.

Due to closure of office, it is feared that the entrance tests for engineering colleges in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa scheduled to be held on September 27 might be delayed further.

Besides conducting various other tests, ETEA also conducts entrance tests for admission to medical and engineering colleges.

Earlier, the entrance tests of engineering colleges were scheduled at September 06 which were postponed and later on it was announced that tests will be held on September 27. However, after closure of ETEA office, it is feared that the tests might be delayed again.

ETEA was already under criticism from various quarters for delaying the entrance tests, and now if the tests were delayed again then the students will face additional problems.

Few days earlier, the provincial government said it has decided to restructure and strengthen ETEA.

KP Chief Minister Mehmood Khan said while presiding over progress review meeting of ETEA at Chief Minister Secretariat Peshawar urged the need for capacity enhancement of ETEA and directed the concerned authorities to come up with a feasible plan for strengthening and restructuring the agency.

The chief minister said ETEA’s restructuring is imperative in order to enable it to cope with the ever increasing needs of educational testing and evaluation.

Mehmood Khan said ETEA is sole and responsible testing agency of the provincial government which is playing vital role in fast track testing and evaluation as well as in the recruitment of staff in transparent manner.

He also directed to speed up the recruitment process of staff for provincial departments and assured that the provincial government would extend every possible support to strengthen the agency.

The meeting was informed that during 2019 entry tests of 11,500 candidates were conducted for engineering and 45,000 candidates attended tests for medical collages.