The first draft of Hazara University Act was prepared by Higher Education Department, NWFP and the University Grants Commission (Now Higher Education Commission) in 1995. Two years later, in 1997, the NWFP Provincial Assembly passed Hazara University Act in 1997 and Lt. Gen. (R) Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah Governor NWFP took the bold step of establishing Hazara University in the Neuropsychiatry Hospital, Dhodial, Mansehra, in 2002.