LAHORE, May 17: The Punjab health department has failed to resolve the issue of budget bifurcation of the Services Institute of Medical Sciences/Services Hospital and the Postgraduate Medical Institute/Lahore General Hospital even after a lapse of almost one year.

The PGMI was detached from the Services Hospital after the establishment of SIMS last year. The department has yet to take any decision on the bifurcation of the budget between both the institutions because of differences on the ratio of segregation.

The delay has created a financial impasse leading to problems in smooth functioning of the institution. Besides problems in disbursement of salaries in time, the PGMI is facing acute shortage of chemicals to be used for research by the students. "The PGMI's research activities have come to a standstill due to unavailability of funds," according to its officials.

They say everything is breaking down and they are not even able to pay utility bills in time due to which the institute is daily facing threats of electricity and phone disconnections.

According to the officials, the control of the whole budget remained in the hands of SIMS/SHL administration, which did not give them their due share. It is learnt that Punjab Health Secretary Sohail Ahmad had recently called a meeting to resolve the issue, but it failed.

The PGMI/LGH administration has taken a stance that the institution should be given its sanctioned budget of Rs169.011 million (including Rs42.8 million already spent so far).

It has rejected the stand of SIMS and the health department that the PGMI/LGH should be given funds for the last quarter of this financial year in proportion to the funds utilized in three previous quarters. It says that it will be unfair to the PGMI/LGH to deny its non-lapseable savings.

The PGMI/LGH board of management says it must be provided with the funds saved from vacant gazetted and deputation posts and other heads. The institution, it says, will be requiring the budgets after vacancies are filled.

When contacted, PGMI/LGH BoM chairman Pervaiz Masood said the board had written to Punjab Health Secretary Sohail Ahmad that the budget bifurcation should be just and equitable. "We do not want to indulge in controversies and nobody will be allowed to usurp our rights," he said.

Answering a question, he said when the institution was not given its due share in the first nine months of this financial year, how it can spend. "How can a man be blamed for not being able to swim, if he is not allowed to enter the water?" he remarked.

Mr Masood said the control of the whole budget remained in the hands of SIMS/SHL management and they were just made to look on. He said PGMI/LGH Principal Prof Dr Ali Ajwad Shah had written a letter to the health secretary, endorsed by him, asking him to bifurcate the budget in a fair and equitable manner.

"We are being victimized because of remaining silent and avoiding exposing unjustified decisions." He said he would soon talk to the health and finance secretaries to resolve the matter.

Prof Shah, however, declined to comment on the subject. SIMS/SHL Principal Prof Dr Faisal Masood was not available for comments. The health secretary said there was no issue of budget bifurcation. "There is absolutely no problem."

He said it was just an internal matter of the two government institutions, adding the detachment of any two institutions was a difficult task and he was here to remove problems.

Answering a question, he said, the health department and the finance department had not stopped payment of salaries to the PGMI/LGH salaries. Rather it was trying that each institution got enough budget.