AIOU’s EC approves budget for 2020-2021

ISLAMABAD: The Executive Council of Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) in its meeting held here Monday at the main campus approved the annual budget 2020-2021 of the university for both recurring expenditures and development.
As per Act of the University, the Executive Council, which is the executive body of the university and exercising general supervision over the affairs of the university approves annual budget on the recommendation of Finance Committee of the university.
The meeting was chaired by the Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Zia Ul-Qayyum and participated by majority of the members. Prof. Zia Ul-Qayyum informed the meeting that the university was extending its services to all areas of the country, and for that purpose constructing its own customized buildings in different parts of the country.
He said that construction work of Moro Regional Office (Sindh), Sukkur Regional Office (Sindh) and Muzaffarad Regional office will start soon. He informed that budget allocations have been made in 2020-2021budget for acquiring land and construction of buildings of regional offices/centers in other parts of the country as well.
The Vice Chancellor told the meeting that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) gives 40-50 per cent grant to other universities for meeting their recurring budget, whereas the Commission gives us just 4-5 per cent annual grant.
He informed that last year the HEC promised a 410 million grant to the AIOU but later on only an amount of 22 million rupees was given to the university, which is even less than one percent of our recurring budget.
The Council noticed this anomaly with concern and authorized Prof. Zia Ul-Qayyum to take up the issue with Chairman HEC and even the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Education.
While appreciating his predecessors at the AIOU for setting up an endowment fund in the university Professor Zia Ul-Qayyum informed the session that AIOU meeting its development budget from this endowment fund.
He said that recently the university further solidified its endowment fund by adding 1.5 billion rupees to it.
The University’s Treasurer informed that the strict austerity measures were taken during the outgoing year to save the University’s financial resources.
The Executive Council allowed the university to allocate budget for revising the University over-time payment to low-paid employees, particularly those working on second shift. It also approved the proposal of stopping deducting the transport allowance from the employees, during the lock-down period in wake of COVID-19.