Sindh public universities funds cut

Cut in varsity funds slated
Hyderabad, July 15: Activists of the All Sindh Universities Employees Federation staged a march from Shahbaz Building to the press club on Wednesday in protest against drastic cuts in allocation of funds for the public universities of Sindh.

A large number of low-grade employees of Sindh, Mehran, Liaquat Medical universities and Sindh Agriculture University of Tandojam took part in the protest.

Addressing protesters, federation leaders said it was due to reduction in funds that the financial position of the public universities had been weakened and they were on the verge of bankruptcy.

They said that if the universities were not provided funds, poor students of interior Sindh would be deprived of higher education and the universities would have to suspend research in the fields of medical science, agriculture, engineering and environment.

They urged the government to pay attention to the problem and solve it.

They demanded that the public universities budget should be increased at least by 100 per cent.

They warned that if the budget of the Sindh universities was not increased, they would continue the protest.

PCR labs: The provincial manager of Sindh Chief Minister’s “Hepatitis Free Sindh Special Programme”, Dr Abdul Majeed Chutto has said that during the current fiscal year, two new PCR laboratories will be established in Karachi and Sukkur to diagnose Hepatitis and added that free treatment will be provided to 70,000 Hepatitis-C and 5,000 Hepatitis-B patients throughout the province.

Talking to media personnel here on Wednesday, he said the provincial government had allocated a huge amount of Rs1 billion in the current financial year for the special programme to eliminate fatal Hepatitis disease. During the current financial year, anti-hepatitis vaccination would be carried out in all the schools and jails and an organised awareness campaign would be launched in the province, Dr Chhutto said. Dawn