Case for release of Rs 0.600 bln for scholarships to Afghan students under process

ISLAMABAD, Apr 26 (APP):The case for release of supplementary grant of Rs 0.600 billion for the project titled “Award of 3,000 Scholarships to students from Afghanistan under the Prime Minister’s Directive” is under process at the Ministry of Finance, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance Miftah Ismail said on Thursday.
Unveiling the Economic Survey 2017-18 here, he said under the scheme, the Government of Pakistan offered scholarships to 3000 Afghan students in various fields, including medicine, engineering, agriculture, management and computer sciences.
He said under the PSDP 2017-18, the government had allocated Rs 35. 663 billion for 181 development projects – 112 ongoing and 69 un-approved projects for universities.
During FY 2018, he said, 21 projects with a total cost of Rs 46.713 billion had been considered and approved. Thus the total number of approved projects increased to 133, he added.
Miftah said during 2017-18 (July-December), the government had released Rs 11.628 billion (33 percent of the total budget) to ongoing development projects of universities/HEC whereas, the third quarter amount Rs 4.233 billion was being released.
In addition, he said the HEC had been given the responsibility of designing, implementation and execution of the project titled “Prime Minister’s Laptop Scheme-HEC (Phase-II)”. The case for release of an amount of Rs 5.287 billion for PM’s Laptop Scheme-HEC (Phase-II) was under process at Ministry of Finance, he added.