FAISALABAD, Nov 8: The University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) has been facing huge financial crunch and finding it difficult to release salaries for the current month as the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has not released the promised grant for the last four months, Dawn has learned.

An HEC team, however, visited the university on Saturday and assured its administration that the government was considering releasing the grant and the issue would be resolved soon.

The UAF had approved Rs900 million annual budget for the current fiscal year and the HEC had promised allocating Rs613 million grant.

However, the commission did not release even a penny during the last four months, landing the university in an outlandish situation and making it difficult to manage even the monthly salaries of its faculty.

The university has around 2,800 employees attached with its six faculties and four institutes. Besides, dozens of employees are also working in directorate of advance studies, division of education and extension, student affairs, research and directorate of sports.

Owing to financial crisis, the UAF has been facing shortage of medicine, fuel, fertilisers, pesticides, fodder for animals and many other required facilities.

Its monthly expenses are around Rs80 million and it spends over Rs55 million alone on paying salaries to the faculty.

Talking to Dawn, vice-chancellor Dr Iqrar Ahmed said the management had been releasing salaries by utilising its resources for the past three months. However, now the varsity was not in a position to release the salaries for its regular faculty. Besides, he said, the management had also been facing numerous problems in paying remuneration to employees working on ad hoc or daily wages bases.

He said the HEC had released Rs122 million grant in July this year only. Thereafter, the commission did not issue any grant to the UAF, he added.

Dr Iqrar said the situation would hamper UAF research projects which would ultimately affect agriculture sector in the country.

He said that fresh admissions and suspension of different projects had enabled the university in issuing salaries to its faculty.

The vice-chancellor said the administration didn't want hiding the situation from its employees and that's why they all had been apprised of the current financial status.

“I had met with HEC officials in Islamabad and apprised them of the critical situation. They had promised releasing funds soon," Dr Iqrar added.

Besides, he said, a two-member HEC team also visited the university on Saturday and had a meeting with UAF management to discuss ways and means to resolve the financial crisis. The HEC had promised that situation would be improved soon as the government was going to release the funds, he added.

The vice-chancellor said the UAF management was in regular contact with the commission as well as the Punjab governor, who was chancellor of the university.