ISLAMABAD, Oct 29: The University of Arid Agriculture Rawalpindi (UAAR) is facing serious economic constraints as the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has stopped releasing funds earmarked under its cash plan for the current financial year.

The UAAR is the first university in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad that has formally raised its concerns over the lack of funding which is hampering its ongoing development projects.

“The UAAR is in serious financial crisis and if the same condition persists, the university will have to stop working on a number of its ongoing development projects,” Dr Khalid Mahmood Khan, Vice-Chancellor UAAR, warned.

The HEC has imposed budgetary cuts on both of UAAR’s development and recurring grants which is making harder for the university to carry on with its smooth functioning, Dr Khalid said.

The university did not get funding for the fourth quarter of the last financial year.

Similarly, the HEC has only recently released funds due under the first quarter of the current financial year. “Under the approved cash plan, the university was to get Rs330 million but it only received Rs185 million,” he added.

The university is fast coming to a point where it would only be able to meet its recurring expenditures i.e. salaries of faculties, transportation, campus maintenance, etc., he said in reply to a question.

Over the years, the university has increased its enrollment which currently stands at over 4,000 students, and with the increasing pressure on its budget, it would be difficult to further increase the number of its students which otherwise was on the rise with every passing year, Dr Khalid said.

Sounding very pessimistic about the ongoing developments in the higher education sector of the country, he argued that the government has to take it very seriously otherwise the entire good work done during the last four years would go waste.

The government has spent billions of rupees on scores of development projects in the public sector universities throughout the country and the mid-way halting of these projects would mean wasting the entire money spent so far.

The government, which is presently facing serious economic meltdown, has imposed major cuts on the annual budgetary allocations of the HEC, and the universities are the direct victims of this fallout.

The HEC has to divert whatever money it gets from the government to its human resource development (HRD) under which over 6,000 students are at present getting education abroad. Therefore, the HEC is left with no money to provide to the development projects of the universities.