HYDERABAD, Dec 16: The Sindh University senate at its 28th meeting on Wednesday approved the university's Rs663.883 million budget for 2004-05, with a deficit of Rs175.260 million.

Vice chancellor Mazharul Haq Siddiqui presided over the meeting. The director finance, Mr Ghulam Mohammad Memon, told the meeting that the deficit would be met by the university from its own resources.

The senate approved upgradation of the institute of pharmacy into a full-fledged faculty with four new departments. It called upon the Higher Education Commission to enhance the annual budgetary allocations and release the same in the beginning of each quarter.

The senate appointed a committee headed by renowned writer Dr N.A. Baloch to study the system and furnish recommendations. In his progress report, the vice-chancellor said the university had awarded Ph.D degrees to 26 scholars in 2003-04 session while 38 Ph.D candidates were registered by advanced studies and research board.

He said the university organized a number of training courses in physics, chemistry, zoology, botany, bio-chemistry, bio-technology and other disciplines for teachers of the university and affiliated colleges as well as for the college teachers of other universities.

He claimed that for the first time, eight senior teachers of different faculties had been offered scholarships for post doctoral studies abroad. He also gave the details of ongoing and proposed development schemes and said he had submitted a ten year development programme to the HEC of an estimated cost of Rs7.2 billion.

He told the senate that the university had signed MoUs including academic exchange programmes with the Islamic University Uganda, student exchange agreement with the "Universiti Sains Malaysia", agreement of cultural and educational cooperation with the University of Venice, Ca Foiscari.