HEC’s World Bank funding to be cancelled if Rs. 2.27b grant not approved

A supplementary grant worth Rs. 2.27 billion has been sought out by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan to avoid the cancellation of financial support from the World Bank (WB). For this purpose, the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training has sought the federal cabinet’s Economic Coordination Committee’s (ECC) approval of the grant.

The World Bank provides a credit facility to HEC under the project “Higher Education Development in Pakistan (HEDP)”. Since HEC failed to complete the nine Disbursement Linked Indicators (DLIs) of the project due to a shortage of funds according to sources, it is expected that the credit facility may be canceled by the World Bank unless the goals are met.

Assistance worth $218 million may be canceled by the bank unless HEC can fulfill the requirements. HEC requires funds worth Rs. 3.86 billion to complete the goals. It has decided to cut down on some expenditures while using Rs. 1.5 billion from its own resources and has requested the government for the rest of the funds for the completion.

Due to a limited budget, HEC was allotted fewer funds than it required this year as well as the previous years which lead to a lack of funds for the completion of the project.