NED financial crunch | KU Jobs
Illegal move causes NED to face liabilities of over Rs1bn
Karachi, June 03: Facing a serious financial crunch, the NED
University of Engineering and Technology currently has liabilities of
Rs1.5 billion, including a large amount borrowed from three banks, it
emerged on Sunday.
The situation, according to sources, was mainly caused when the
institution a few years ago decided to opt for an illegal act and
borrowed heavily from banks against employees' general provident funds
which were worth more than Rs600 million. The loans were taken at an
interest rate of 14 per cent. Sources said that the university took this
measure to pay salaries which the university administration had been
finding too difficult to release on account of drastic budget cuts
imposed by the government on public sector universities across the
country.
The situation was aggravated because of delays in timely release of
funds by the Higher Education Commission (HEC). "The funds are never
released on time and there is a monthly deficit of Rs42 million," said a
university official.
The major reasons for the financial crisis were, according to him, a
high increase in government employees' salaries over the past five
years, cuts in university grants, and at the same time, expansion in
teaching and non-teaching departments and increase in the number of
students.
"Our financial crisis is more severe than the Karachi University's,"
he said. "The KU has been managing budget cuts through its lucrative
evening programme having quite a significant number of students as
compared to ours. At NED University, the evening programme is only for a
limited number of masters' students."
However, despite shortage of funds the university, over the past five
years, has hired a number of people as teaching and non-teaching staff.
Hence, the number of employees increased from around 1,900 to 2,400 and
the monthly salary expenditures increased from Rs25 million in 2007-08
to Rs87 million at present. Currently, the financial impact of creating
new posts stands at Rs208 million and the shortfall in the revised
annual budget is Rs500 million.
Moreover, the university is overstaffed by at least 700 non-teaching
personnel and has been unable to pay its employees timely salaries and
semester examination dues of teachers have been pending for at least
three months.
Though the university demanded Rs87 million for the current period, the HEC pledged Rs74 million.
The vice chancellor of NED University, Prof Dr M.
Afzal Haque, who took charge in April after a 16-year-long stint by the
late engineer Abul Kalam, said that a bailout package by the government
was desperately needed to pull the university out from the vicious
circle of debt. He said that the crisis had not just affected payment of
employees' salaries but the university was also unable to pay its
suppliers and clear other bills, including those incurred on employees'
medical treatment.
"We have a liability of Rs1.5 billion right now," he said. "Around
Rs800 million was borrowed from banks. Though the university is trying
to cope with the financial constraints, government help is desperately
needed for a bailout package."
"Presently, 75 per cent of the budget is being spent on salaries and
there is a big deficit in income and expenditures. We are paying Rs90
million annually as an interest on bank loans," said Prof Haque. "To
counter the situation, we have stopped making new appointments. The
university has also introduced various in-house checks, for instance
discouraging unnecessary use of electricity, so that we can bring small
positive improvement in university's financial position."
When asked about the use of employees' provident funds to acquire
loans, Prof Haque said, "Yes, it was an illegal move. But I have taken
the charge only a month ago and had never thought of facing a crisis
like this here. It's unfortunate since I am an academic person forced to
deal with a tough monetary situation right from the start of my tenure.
The crisis could worsen if timely support was not provided."
A number of meetings had been held with the university's chancellor
and secretary of HEC, he said, adding that they had given positive
signals. The Sindh government had provided Rs100 million and promised to
pay Rs150 million more. "There is also a plan to seek help from the NED
University alumni, industrialists and philanthropists to set up an
endowment fund of at least Rs2.5 billion," he said.
Meanwhile, university employees had serious concerns over the
institution's monetary problems that they said must be solved at the
earliest.
"This might be a punishment for our silence during all these years.
Teachers today are deprived of their basic right to timely payment of
salaries and provident funds," said Ghazanfar Hussain, a representative
of the NED University Teachers' Association.
To deal with the financial crunch, he said that the fee structure
could be revised and an afternoon academic session for undergraduate
students could be launched. Dawn
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KU extends form submission to June 15
Karachi: University of Karachi has informed that application forms for
the posts of lecturers, assistant professors, associate professors and
professors at different departments of the university can now be
submitted until June 15, 2013. The applicants who have already submitted
their applications and want to update their CV can obtain the relevant
form from the Registrar office. ppi
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LLM students theses
Karachi: The University of Karachi has advised the
LLM students to submit their theses to their respective colleges by Sept
15 without any late fee and till Oct 30 with a late fee of Rs1,500.
A student would have to submit six copies of their thesis, which
should be related to 12 compulsory subjects of the first and second year
of LLM and written according to the research methodology, said a KU
statement issued here on Sunday.
Each student would have to submit a pay order of Rs1,500 in the name
of the controller of examinations of the University of Karachi with
other necessary documents.
The failed students who are to appear only in viva voce would have to submit four copies of their thesis with Rs7,500 pay order.
Whereas, the students failing in theses would have to submit two copies
of their fresh theses with Rs7,500 pay-order in the name of the
controller of examinations. Dawn
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