LAHORE, June 24: The Punjab University Academic Staff Association has expressed serious concern over non-issuance of fourth instalment of grant to the Higher Education Commission.

The association at an emergency meeting of its executive body here on Sunday said that owing to stoppage of the recurring grant of HEC, the universities had been forced to borrow loans from banks to pay salaries to its teachers and employees.

The finance ministry had earlier promised to give Rs6 billion recurring grant to HEC but the government was using this money to make payment to MNAs and MPAs, said the meeting.

As a result of grant stoppage, thousands of teachers, students and researchers had been deprived of scholarships and many research and development programmes were stopped, which would affect the standard of higher education in the country, said the meeting.