LAHORE, Sept 23: The federal finance ministry has refused to release funds for any new project of the public-sector universities in the country.

A senior officer of the Higher Education Commission told Dawn on Tuesday that it had approved a number of proposed projects of various universities, but the finance ministry refused to allocate funds. Subsequently, the HEC had asked the varsities not to forward any new project proposal to it, he added.

He further informed that the ministry had released the HEC’s first quarterly installment of development and recurring grant for 2008-09 fiscal, but it was 25 per cent less than that of the corresponding period.

Earlier, the federal finance ministry had also refused to release the HEC’s fourth quarterly installment of development and recurring grant for 2007-08 fiscal, amounting to over Rs8 billion. However, on the intervention of the prime minister, the ministry had released only one-third of the amount. The ministry had withheld the amount on the pretext that the government was facing financial crunch.

The finance ministry had then asked the HEC to provide it with the details of the funds it was distributing to the varsities. “Mere disbursement of funds by the HEC to the varsities does not reflect true picture of expenditure incurred by these establishments”. It had also sought details of the revenue generated by universities other than the grants received by them from the HEC and that were submitted accordingly.

The country’s 60 public-sector universities, which have already been facing financial problems because of this reason, may face more problems as they cannot initiate any development and research projects.

“Some 90 HEC-funded projects initiated by various public varsities have been badly affected owing to stoppage of funds by the HEC,” the senior officer further said.

The HEC has also advised the varsities to explore the possibilities to generate funds from their own resources to meet the shortfall. Most of the varsities have reportedly started concentrating on self-finance programmes to generate revenue.

“Shortage of funds will affect research activity which is already a neglected area,” a varsity vice-chancellor told Dawn on the request of anonymity.

On the other hand, the Punjab University has requested the HEC not to stop funding of those projects half of which have been completed.