The federal government has allocated Rs60,000 million under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the 141 ongoing and 19 new schemes of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) during the fiscal year 2024-25.

According to the budget document issued here on Wednesday, around Rs41,871.792 million has been earmarked for the ongoing schemes and Rs18,128.208 million for the new schemes.

Among the ongoing schemes, an amount of Rs 900 million is allocated for the Award of Allama Muhammad Iqbal 3000 scholarships to Afghan students under the PM’s directive while Rs450 million has been reserved for the construction of Academic Block, Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZABMU), Islamabad (Revised).

Similarly, Rs400 million each was allocated for the development of the Main Campus, Bacha Khan University, Charsadda and the development of the National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS), Rawalpindi (Revised).

Furthermore, Rs400 million have been reserved for the establishment of the Campus of Government College University, Faisalabad at District Chiniot (to be revised), Rs500 million for the establishment of Kamyab Jawan Sports Academies (High Performance & Resource Centers) and Youth Olympics – HEC, Rs500 million for the establishment of the University of Baltistan at Skardu - (Revised).

An amount of Rs759 million has also been allocated for Fulbright Scholarship Support Program HEC-USAID (Phase-III), while Rs3,890 million is reserved for Overseas Scholarship for MS/MPhil leading to PhD in selected fields (Phase III) - HEC (Revised), Rs3,000 million allocated for PhD scholarship programme under the Pak-US Knowledge Corridor (Phase-I)-(Revised).

Among new schemes, the government has allocated Rs10,000 million for Higher Education Development Programme of Pakistan (HEDP)-(Revised), while Rs6,000 million is allocated for PM’s Laptop Scheme.

Similarly, Rs30 million for PM’s Youth Internship Program, and Rs100 million for the establishment of the Manufacturing Technology, Automation and Innovation Center.