LAHORE: The Punjab government has reportedly diverted Rs300m funds allocated for the higher education department to other development projects.

The government had allocated Rs500m to provide the missing facilities in colleges and universities; however, the Punjab Finance Department had shifted the budget towards sewerage and road construction projects in Sheikhupura and Gujranwala.

A senior Higher Education Department (HED) official, on condition of anonymity, told Dawn Rs500m allocated for missing facilities were blocked by the Planning and Development Department and now the finance department had shifted Rs300m out of the total amount to other schemes. He said the HED had a plan to use the funds to provide facilities, including infrastructure, building classrooms, laboratories and other things of the colleges and universities, but now it won’t be possible since funds had been diverted to another department.

The official said the HED was already facing shortage of funds as the government had turned a number of colleges into universities. He said the department had to upgrade the infrastructure in colleges to smoothly run four-year bachelor’s programmers and funds were needed for that too.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2022