Cut in HEC budget decried
LAHORE: The massive cut of Rs7 billion in the allocation for the Higher Education Commission compared to the current fiscal budget is bound to devastate the infrastructural and academic development of the public-sector universities across the country.
The government has allocated Rs15.7 billion for the HEC compared to the current financial year allocation of Rs22.5 billion. The already funds-starved universities will be pushed in the financial mess leading to decay of ongoing physical development, lament vice chancellors of the public-sector universities in Lahore.
Talking to Dawn, University of Education Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Munawwar Mirza said the major cut in development funds for the institute would immediately halt development. She said the varsities’ vice chancellors and the HEC had proposed Rs30 billion funds to meet the existing expenditure as well as maintain further development.
“The higher education was given boost in the previous years but the latest allocation will ruin the physical development and pace of academic advancement,” she said.
Prof Mirza said the government would neither be able to open new universities nor could it expand the base of students’ enrolment (in universities). She said the universities, including the University of Education, had launched new academic programmes in anticipation that the infrastructure would be developed in a couple of years. Now, these would be closed and those announced for launching would never be materialised, she said.
She feared that the highly insufficient budget allocation might also affect the scholars doing their PhDs abroad and being funded by the HEC. “If the HEC would ask the respective universities to finance the PhD scholars abroad, the universities have no money. They are already cash-strapped,” she said.
University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Nawaz said the relatively young universities would be in financial straits as they had no resources available to generate funds at this point of time.He said the UVAS was a new university and needed massive funding to carry out its development projects leading to quality education in livestock, poultry and agriculture sectors. He said churning out competent graduates in these sectors was a must to continue growth on fast pace.
Prof Nawaz said the university was banking on the funding for its mega project on new campus in Pattoki, where heavy investment had already been made and dairy farm, dairy shed, sheep and goat sheds and other infrastructure had developed.
Now, he said, the university was expecting massive funding for the construction of lecture rooms, labs, library, hostels and other infrastructure to move students there for their hands-on training. “Unavailability of funds will halt this development and severely impact growth in the livestock sector. It showed 4.1 per cent growth this year,” he added.
Prof Nawaz also said the university’s financial position was not even strong enough to meet the impact of 50 per cent raise in basic pay of employees as well as 15 per cent increase in medical allowance.
Punjab University pro-vice-chancellor Prof Dr Jamil Anwar Chaudhry said the financial cut would bring the ongoing projects to a standstill as the varsity would be unable to purchase the latest equipment and run the existing equipment that required massive funding as recurring expenditure.
He said the Punjab government had already instructed that the varsities could neither increase fees nor could they run self-finance scheme programmes. He said the PU had estimated that it would be required to pay an additional Rs460 million under the head of salaries in case the government offered 15 per cent raise. “The 50 per cent increase in salaries will upset the financial capacity of the university,” he said.
University of Engineering and Technology Vice-Chancellor Muhammad Akram, a retired lieutenant general, said the financial cut would cost universities a lot in the long run as the existing development projects would stop. In order to re-start development projects, he said, the universities would be requiring funds much more than the current estimates.
During the current financial year, he lamented that the university received only Rs40 million out of the Rs195 million allocation under the Public Sector Development Programme. He said construction was currently being carried out on its Kala Shah Kaku, Faisalabad and Rachna campuses.Dawan
