Rs3.5bn needed as HEC’s mismanagement leads to fund scarcity in KU

Karachi University has not received any research funding for 2018, 2019 and 2020

Karachi University is considered one of the top learning places in the country. Still, the shortage of funds, ad-hoc culture, and inappropriate decisions of the Higher Education Commission badly affect KU’s performance.

The university’s grant from the HEC gets delayed every year, creating more problems for the teaching and non-teaching staff besides hampering research projects.

The university needs a bailout package of around Rs3.5 billion to sort out several problems it has been facing for years, said a source of the university’s science department. The source said that the university gets almost an equal amount yearly that it needs in the bailout, adding this delay causes immense hardships for employees. Hundreds of employees have not received their retirement dues, and this was not confined to only low staff members, but a senior official who retired last year was yet to receive his dues, the source revealed to Minute Mirror.

Lack of funds was also dealing a devastating blow to the research activities of the university. The place of learning that produced some of the country’s best minds has not received any research funding for 2018, 2019 and 2020, said another source affiliated with the university finance administration. For the year 2021, they have announced research funding, the source revealed, hoping that the authorities delivered on their promises. The vice-chancellor is not permanent, and an acting vice-chancellor has been running the largest university of Sindh, spreading over 12000 acres with around 24000 students and 800 staff members.

When we take up this issue of non-payment to employees before the VC, he offers various excuses, asserting he cannot do anything because he does not have a permanent position, said a teacher of art faculty on the condition of anonymity.

The university would earn through a private examination system. Still, the HEC has also abolished it, said the teacher, complaining about the one hand the HEC does not provide funding on time. On the other it cancelled the alternate means of financing, complicating the financial woes of the university.

To tide over the crisis, the university has made a phenomenal increase to the student fee, said a Mathematics Department student of the university.

The student’s unions have been weakened over the years, and no association dares to protest this injustice because of the fear of Rangers, he added.