Punjab University Vice Chancellor, Professor Dr Mujahid Kamran has said that the drama of stoppage of Higher Education Commission (HEC) funds started when the commission declared genuine status of fake degrees of some members of the Parliament defying their pressure. According to the press statement Mujahid Kamran expressed these views while talking to a TV channel.
He said that some elements in the Finance Ministry, following the foreign agenda and interests, wanted to privatise educational institutions in order to deprive poor students of education. He said that the government increased wages of employees by 50 percent and again 20 percent but did not gave a single penny in this regard asking universities to meet expenditures on their own resources.
He said that the government has created huge financial problems for universities by withholding grants of billions of rupees. He said that the universities even had to take loan from banks to pay salaries and Punjab University is facing a deficit of Rs 33 crore this year.
He also said that if the rulers could unite for 18th and 20th Amendment, then why they are not joining hands for promotion of education? He said that the government has a fund of 500 billion rupees but the real matter is of priorities and biases. He said that the government is due to release 12 billion rupees to universities for salaries and development projects in the last quarter but the Finance Ministry only gave around 2 billion rupees.