HEC disburses Rs6.80bn on Fee Reimbursement Scheme

ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) had disbursed around Rs 6.80 billion on the Prime Minister Fee Reimbursement Scheme and under this project approximately 138,000 male and female students had got benefit.

According to the officials, HEC has also prepared a summary for the extension of Prime Minister Fee Reimbursement Scheme for another five years.

Meanwhile HEC has sent a proposal of Rs 3.14 billion to the Ministry of Finance for extension of initial one year and after its approval around 65000 students would be benefited from less developed areas.

The Cabinet had approved the Fee Reimbursement Scheme on 1st June, 2012 for the period of five years for selected areas but later it was expanded to 114 districts including interior Sindh, Southern Punjab, Azad Jammun and Kashmir(AJK), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa(KP) and specific districts of the Punjab.

Under this scheme, the amount of Rs 6.80 billion had been reimbursed to students during last five years in the head of tuition fee and other expenditures.

However, the sources said that around Rs 1.58 billion had been disbursed under the reimbursement of tuition fee and other expenditures among 30,000 male and female students of FATA and Balochistan.

The sources said that Rs 1688 million among 20,000 students of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while Rs 593 million among 17,500 students of Sindh, and Rs 2386 million among the 50755 students of Punjab had been disbursed.

Under the Scheme, around 1185 students of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) have been given Rs 160 million, while Rs 685 million among 11982 students from AJK have been reimbursed.

Rs 429 million have been disbursed among the 5258 students belonging to Gilgit-Baltistan, the sources added.

The sources said that the scheme was being appreciated by the parliamentarians of FATA and Balochistan.