ISLAMABAD, It’s official now. The Higher Education Commission (HEC) will be substantially curtailing its flagship human resource development programme, which it has been quite enthusiastically pursuing since its inception in 2002.

“This year the HEC would only be able to fund 15 to 20 per cent students against its various scholarship schemes. It is a major setback,” HEC Human Resource Development Adviser Dr Riaz Qureshi said on Monday.

Speaking at a press conference, Dr Qureshi said due to regular cuts in HEC’s development grants, it had left with no other option but to limit its scholarship schemes.

“At present, our main concern is to support scholars who are already studying in various national and international universities.”

In response to a question, the official said it all depended upon government’s future financial commitment towards the HEC because under current circumstances, the commission was hard pressed to spare any funds for its HRD programme.

It is worth mentioning here that during the tenure of HEC’s founding chairman Dr Attaur Rehman, billions of rupees were spent on sending Pakistani students abroad for higher education.

During the 23rd meeting of the commission, a formal request was made to the government for financial help because “we are finding it difficult to carry on with our development schemes for public sector universities,” said HEC Adviser Dr S.M. Raza, who was also present on the occasion.

According to an estimate, more than 250 ongoing development projects of public sector universities throughout the country have been adversely affected owing to the shortage of funds. Hardly any day passes when a vice-chancellor of some university does not formally ask for financial help, said an HEC official, who requested not to be named.

This year at the time of federal budget’s announcement, the HEC suffered a major setback when the government allocated only Rs15.762 billion against the demand of Rs30 billion.Under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2010-11, the government has committed Rs15.762 billion for the HEC, showing a significant decline in last year’s funding of Rs22.5 billion.The official said with this money (Rs15.76 billion) the commission would not be in a position to launch even a single development project.

In the PSDP 2009-10, the government committed Rs22.5 billion to the HEC but the figure was later revised to Rs18.5 billion for its 230 ongoing projects and 128 new projects.

The HEC needs more than Rs10 billion to support its ongoing HRD project under which it provides scholarships to around 9,000 students.

Around 4,000 students are in foreign universities on various scholarships – PhD, MS, MSc, post doctoral, short courses, whereas rest of them are availing financial assistance to study in local universities.

“Our major focus will be to complete ongoing development projects which are into final stages, because with every passing day cost of civil work is rising. There are several projects which have already over shot their time limit,” the HEC official said.