The Ministry of Finance has promised to release Rs4.61 billion to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in the 3rd quarter of current fiscal year and now it is expected that public sector universities would be able to give their employees both 50% and 15% increase in monthly salaries with effect from January 1, 2012, sources said here on Friday.

Sources, both from the Ministry of Finance and HEC confirmed that funds have been allocated to provide increase in salaries to employees of public sector universities as announced by the federal government on two occasions.

Sources said the increase in salaries put an extra financial burden worth Rs7 billion so the HEC was not able to release enough recurring budget to public sector universities to pay for the previous 50 per cent as well as 15 per cent additional salary increase announced by the government in the annual budget.

According to official data, recurring grant approved for transfer to universities for financial year 2011-12 was 9% (Rs2.46 billion) lower than the amount approved for the previous financial year, even though there was a 16% increase in nominal GDP of Pakistan in financial year 2010-11.

HEC has also informed public sector universities about expected provision of funds saying that employees would be paid increase in the monthly salaries with effect from January 1 this year.

Sources said that the HEC faced the same financial crunch last year, which was followed by a series of protest demonstrations in universities after which the government announced Rs5.8 billion supplementary grant.

Later, the HEC in its letter to vice chancellors of universities stated: “We do recognise that additional funding is required to pay for the previous 50% increase in salaries already granted, as well as the 15% additional salary increase announced by the government, however, no additional funding appears to be available at this time to the HEC for disbursement to universities”.

It is pertinent to mention here that governors of Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in their capacity as chancellors of public sector universities also informed the prime minister of their inability to implement the government’s decision of giving a 50 per cent raise in salaries of university teachers until they were provided with the required funds.

At that time, the HEC was informed that the Rs5.8 billion supplementary grant provided in fiscal year 2010-11 was a one time grant and therefore the increase of recurring grant was calculated on the base grant of Rs23.22 billion.

When contacted, HEC Executive Director Dr. Sohail Naqvi told this scribe that the Ministry of Finance has promised to provide extra funds in the 3rd quarter of the current fiscal year, which means that the HEC would be able to pay 15% and 50% salary increase to faculty members of public sector universities.