LAHORE: The provincial government has questioned the Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) chairman about low utilisation of funds during the current financial year for development and non-development components.

The government had released Rs50 million funds to PHEC for a development scheme of ADP 2020-21. The SMDP Portal of the Planning and Development Department indicates zero utilisation of funds out of Rs50m till this date.

The Punjab Finance Department also released Rs225m out of Rs300m allocated for the current financial year but the PHEC could utilise Rs121m only.

The finance, planning and development and higher education department’s authorities had shown serious concerns over low utilisation of funds for the current year.

They also issued directions to improve the system and processes to utilise the allocated funds.

PHEC Planning and Development Director Nauman Maqbool told Dawn the commission would have to cancel some of the grants and conferences due to the coronavirus pandemic. He said the travel was restricted all over the world and they could not attend and hold conferences to call national and international scholars.

However, he claimed the commission had conducted training programmes for the faculties of higher educational institutions and they did not have to spend much on these programmes. He claimed to adjust these funds in the next ADP and the same would not lapse.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2021