PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Thursday said the mushroom growth of public sector universities in the province was collective failure of both the government and opposition.

Concluding general discussion on the 2021-22 budget in the provincial assembly, finance minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra said universities were allowed to spread without quality checks and control.

He said the universities had also abandoned their basic job of providing quality education to the people and had become ‘employment exchanges’.

The minister said the government required the house’s support to fix the higher education system as the universities couldn’t be allowed to continue functioning in the current fashion.

Minister seeks PA support to address issues of higher education sector

He said even the top British universities like Oxford and Cambridge hadn’t branched out in 12 universities and all good colleges in London operated under the umbrella of the University of London.

Mr Jhagra said though universities received grants from the Higher Education Commission, the provincial government had allowed the provision of funds to them from the higher education department’s Rs2 billion current budget.

Earlier, backbenchers of the opposition side praised the finance minister for accommodating important development schemes in the next budget.

Sahibzada Sanaullah of the PPP thanked the government for including major schemes in the Public Sector Development Programme.

Mr Jhagra said historically, there had been differences in budgeted and actual receipts.

He said there were many receipts, which had to be reflected in the budget documents for the sake of claiming the province’s right.

The minister said budgets were always balanced.

“Our government is releasing all kinds of financial data for the sake of transparency. It is the only government not only in Pakistan but also in the Subcontinent that is presenting its figures with utmost transparency to improve budgeting,” he said.

Regarding the domestic loan reflected in the budget, Mr Jhagra said KP was the only province in the country to have zero burden of high-interest domestic loans and the government hadn’t concealed off-balance sheet loans.

He, however, said the domestic loans had been reflected so that the government didn’t have to borrow supplementary grant if the need arose.

The minister said domestic loans were also reflected in the outgoing fiscal but the borrowings were made.

Regarding the net hydel profit receipts, he said the government was reflecting the figures in the budget to make the province’s case before the centre strong.

Mr Jhagra said the provincial government was reflecting the NHP receipts in the budget documents according to a memorandum of understanding signed between the provincial and federal governments in 2015.

He said since last November, the provincial government had been regularly paid NHP proceeds on a monthly basis.

“It’s the first victory in the long battle for the province’s rights and will help institutionalise the NHP proceeds,” he said.

The minister said the government had discontinued the housing subsidy and made the housing allowance admissible to all government employees in Peshawar.

Regarding the Sehat Card Scheme, he said the government was releasing all data of the programme on a monthly basis and that it was not only an insurance scheme but also a complete health system.

Mr Jhagra said the government allocated Rs10 billion in the outgoing year and spent Rs6 billion of it and that the spending would be increased to Rs23 billion in the coming year.

He said it was an investment in health system.

The minister said the government was committed to implementing the minimum wage of Rs21,000 in industries.

He said the province’s foreign debt was less than five per cent of its GDP and that debt profiling for the next 40 years showed that it would remain below three per cent of the GDP. Mr Jhagra said the existing loans were also long-term ones with low interest rate.

He said the growth of the province’s revenue wouldn’t allow the debt to turn into a burden.

The minister said the government would also meet its target of Rs75 billion taxes in the next year.

Regarding the local government department’s budget, he said the new local bodies would have more ‘spending envelope’ than the previous ones’.

He said the reduction of LGs budget from 30 per cent to 20 per cent was due to the abolition of the district tier of the LG system, while the government, at the same time, had increased the TMAs grant to Rs15 billion besides allocating Rs60 billion for the district development programme.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2021