Kehkashan Tabbasum
Higher Education Commission has, besides others, also been mandated with allocating annual budgets to public sector higher educational institutions of the country. With the passage of time, annual budget allocations and grants are getting decreased for the universities in general and its recognised Centres of Excellence in particular.
Over the years, particularly since 2018, Centres of Excellence have become beggars demanding bail out packages, grant in aid and supplementary grants to overcome their financial pendency but in vain.
Nowadays universities and Centres of Excellence are routinely facing financial crisis; some of higher education institutions do not have funds to pay salaries, arrears of house rent ceilings/allowances, medical reimbursements and yearly adhoc reliefs to their staff and pensioners besides granting higher scales upon completion of ten years’ service in the same scale or implementation of the Special Dispensation for the Civil Servants in the Federal Government for the Employees in BPS-01 to BPS-16 effective 01-01-2023 for want of funds from the HEC.
One such academic research institution is the National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, Centre of Excellence of the prestigious Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, which has been facing financial crunch since 2020-21 due to which the staff has not been paid House Rent Ceiling since July 2021 at the pretext that the Higher Education Commission had not released funds to the NIHCR, reliable sources confided to this reporter.
Likewise, the sources claimed, the Institute has not been paid 35 percent Adhoc Relief announced in the Budget 2023-24, Medical Allowance, Medical Reimbursement and Pending grant and arrears of scales upgradation/increments from BPS-1 to 16 under the Special Dispensation for the Civil Servants in the Federal Government w.e.f. 1-1-2023 owing to non-release of funds by the HEC to the NIHCR.
Collectively, the payment of pending amount of the above mentioned to all the serving and retired staff has not been made besides payment of gratuity to all pensioners for over three years now. In order to cross-check my claim, complete details of pending payments yet to be made to the retired and the serving staff may be furnished from the NIHCR.
In spite of huge financial pendency owing to gross financial mismanagement, rumours are rife in the NIHCR that some high ups have been granted house building and motor car advances instead of clearing the pending house rent ceilings of lower staff or making payments to the retired staff.
The recurring financial constraints of universities and their allied Centres of Excellence are because of mismanagement, lack of funds and resources. It is indeed unfortunate that rather than increasing the NIHCR budget, the HEC has been providing decreased budget to the NIHCR thus multiplying financial problems for the NIHCR, the sources remarked.
Certainly, it should be the first and foremost responsibility of the governments, education ministry, and the concerned authorities, like the HEC to look into the affairs of the NIHCR and allocate/grant whatever the budget the NIHCR wants.—Kehkashan Tabbasum
