ISLAMABAD, Nov 22: Over the last five years, the budgetary allocations bracketed for research use in the annual budgets of the Qauid-i-Azam University (QAU) have been reduced from Rs5 million in 1999-2000 to Rs1 million in 2002-03.

According to the documentary evidences provided to Dawn, despite the federal government’s repeated pledges to enhance financial assistance for the public sector universities, educational institutions such as the QAU were not receiving enough resources to run their routine academic activities.

It is worth mentioning that under the public sector programme 2002-2003, the government had allocated an amount of Rs2.5 billion to be spent by the federal ministry of education in the current financial year.

In the year 1999, an amount of Rs5.46 million was allocated under the research heading which over the years-Rs4 million in 2000, Rs3.09 million in 2001, Rs2.8 million in 2002- has been reduced to Rs1 million for the current financial year.

Insiders at the Qauid-i-Azam University administration block told Dawn that during the preparation of the 2002-03 annual budget, the financial advisors of the varsity didn’t slate research fund. But, in the end Rs1 million for research fund was only made possible when the university’s academia pressed the administration to fix the said amount.

Sources added that in terms of available resources the varsity was so hard pressed that over a couple of years it had to increase fee around one hundred percent to meet the varsity’s unavoidable financial commitments.

A senior faculty member of the varsity on condition of anonymity told Dawn that the university was basically established as a research educational institution but due to paucity of resources, it was facing problems in undertaking certain research projects.

He said at present the varsity was offering PhD programmes in every major discipline, be it of natural or social sciences, and had produced a significant number of research scholars over the years.

He said, previously, the University Grants Commission would provide matching grant of the amount a university reserved for the research objective, but this year the UGC had refused help owing to scarcity of funds.

He said on the one hand the federal government talked about heavy investment in the social sector especially health and education and on the other educational institutions were not being provided with required resources.

Another teacher talking to this reporter said it needed a lot of input both in terms of kind and cash to undertake research work, and over the years due to increasing recession in the country and high prices of equipment, the varsity was finding it difficult to undertake the research projects.

He maintained that the QAU was the only university of the country that offered PhDs in every subject of Natural Sciences but with ever contracting research funding,” I can foresee a very bleak future in this regard”.

It may also be added that unlike other universities of the country, QAU research students got their research work verified by three international referees showing the standard the varsity was supposed to meet to catch up with the universities of international standards.