The recent decision of federal government of devolving the HEC to delegate its various functions to divisions of federal government and provinces is a destructive step. The US embassy has showed its inability to disburse $250 million HEC as its functions are being delegated to various agencies and provinces. HEC was doing admirable job to finance thousands of PhD degree students abroad and at home which would now become impossible to do. Students would be stranded abroad without any scholarship that would destroy their academic career. Hundreds of research projects in public sector universities would be adversely affected by the lack of funding to HEC. The inimical attitude of government is like throwing the baby with bath water due its annoyance with HEC to check the bogus degrees of MNAs and MPAs as required by the Supreme Court. This has resulted in the thoughtless action of weakening HEC to make Pakistan a land of uneducated leaders and below the mark scientists. DR. MUHAMMAD YAQOOB BHATTI, Lahore, April 5.