Budget 2023-24: Pakistan allocates Rs135 billion for HEC

ISLAMABAD - The Federal Government has reserved Rs65 billion for the current expenditures and Rs70 billion for the development expenditures of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) during the Fiscal Year 2023-24.

Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar, while delivering his budget speech in the Parliament House today, said that in order to provide financial support to the education sector, Pakistan Endowment Fund is being established for which Rs five billion has been reserved. This Endowment Fund would award scholarships to the male and female students of school and college purely on merit basis, he informed.

Muhammad Ishaq Dar said that it is our target that no brilliant student would deprive of higher education due to a lack of financial resources.

He went on to say that Laptop schemes had been run successfully during 2013-18 in Punjab, adding, during the current fiscal year, the federal government has reinitiated the laptop distribution scheme and under the initiative, as many as 100,000 laptops would be distributed on merit among deserving students.

In order to continue this scheme, he added, Rs 10 billion has been allocated for the next fiscal year.