ISLAMABAD, Nov 25: The federal government rejec-ted on Friday a request for supplementary grants made by national universities and asked vice-chancellors to generate funds on their own.

During a meeting with Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Chairman of the Higher Education Commission Javed Leghari and vice-chancellors sought additional funds to meet expenses and increase salary of teachers and other staff by 50 per cent.

The minister asked the vice-chancellors to meet their expenses from available funds.

The vice-chancellors who met the minister were of the Business School, Peshawar; Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad; University of Gujrat; Karakoram University; University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar; Shah Latif University; Bolan University of Technology and Management Sciences; Sindh Agriculture University; Punjab University; and Sardar Bahadur Khan University, Quetta.

A press release issued by the finance ministry said Mr Shaikh told them that he and the government attached importance to higher education for speeding up the overall socio-economic development.

But, he added, the government faced financial difficulties and was exploring new avenues for revenue generation.

He said the country had been in a state of emergency for the past 10 years and the government was trying to preserve economic stability.