Rs 45 bn approved for HEC development

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms, Ahsan Iqbal has approved allocation of Rs 45 billion for the development budget of Higher Education Commission (HEC) under Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2018-19.

The HEC has recommended to allocate Rs 35 billion for the upcoming fiscal year but the minister gave additional ten billion to prepare doable projects to ensure more competitive higher education based on modern techniques and technology.

Chairing a meeting of Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) here, the minister said that in order to compete with the developed nations in higher education, research, science and technology sectors, it was essential to allocate maximum possible funding.

He said in the current international scenario, it was our national responsibility to move forward in the realm of knowledge and quality research as we can compete the world only by establishing
knowledge based economy.

It may be mentioned here that the current government has increased the HEC development budget by over 135 per cent during previous five years.