ISLAMABAD: The higher education sector of the country could face a massive cut in the recurring budget as the government has decided to allocate only Rs58 billion against HEC’s demand for Rs103 billion.

If all goes as planned by the federal government, there could be a crisis-like situation in 117 public sector universities in the country, sources told Dawn.

Sources in the education ministry said HEC had asked for Rs103 billion recurring grant but it was conveyed by Finance Division that it would be given Rs58.5 billion during the fiscal year 2019-20.

Against a demand for Rs103bn recurring budget, govt decides to provide only Rs58bn to HEC

According to a Finance Division letter (available with Dawn) dated April 5, for year 2019-20 Rs58.5 billion will be given to HEC with forward estimate for 2020-21 of Rs62 billion. Similarly, for 2021-22 the estimate of allocation is Rs65.73 billion.

The sources said for fiscal year 2018-19, the HEC had asked for Rs82.5 billion and Rs65 billion were allocated for it with a shortfall of Rs26.9 billion.

They said there were several reasons behind the increased demand budget such as an increase in salaries and pensions during the last a few years, operational expanses of nine new universities, other recurring programmes.

The sources said for the upcoming fiscal year HEC had demanded Rs30 billion for development schemes and it had been indicated that it would be given Rs28 billion.

During a recent meeting of the Senate Functional Committee on Less Developed Areas, HEC Chairman Dr Tariq Banuri said the commission had faced a cut from Rs45 billion to Rs30 billion in the previous development budget.

The committee had recommended that there should be no cut in the HEC funds.

The sources said for the ongoing fiscal year, out of the total allocation of Rs30.9 billion development budget, so far the government had released Rs15 billion.

The HEC is a regulatory body which supervised the affairs of all public and private sector universities. The federal government provided funds to universities through HEC.

For the upcoming budget, the regulatory body has been demanding more funds but it seems the government is no mood to provide sufficient funds to the universities.

The sources said through the education ministry the HEC would take up the matter with the federal government to enhance the recurring grant as there was still time to finalise the budget.

There are 117 public sector universities and all of them are being provided recurring grant by federal government through HEC.

“There should be no cut on the recurring grant if the allocation is not increased there will be a crisis-like situation in universities as there is a big gap in demand and supply,” an official of HEC told Dawn when contacted.

He said that it had been a practice of previous governments to cut development funds which was a bad practice. But now the government is going to impose a cut on the recurring expenditure which is an alarming situation.

“Prime Minister Imran Khan and Finance Minister Asad Umar should look into the matter,” the official said.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2019