Gurmani Foundation Gives LUMS a generous gift of Rs 1 billion

By Waqas Safder Jun 22nd, 2012 ( No Comment )

Lahore: The Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) has received a most generous gift of Rs. 1 Billion from the Gurmani Foundation which will be used to set up an endowment for supporting financial assistance programmes for the most deserving students and for a range of scholarly activities.

This is the largest single gift ever received by LUMS and may also be the single largest gift ever given to an educational institution in Pakistan.

This current gift follows an earlier gift of Rs. 50 million from the Foundation to LUMS to establish the Gurmani Centre for Languages and Literature at LUMS.

The Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani Endowment Fund – named after agricultural reformer, philanthropist, Prime Minister of Bahawalpur State, and the first Governor of then West Pakistan – will be established by LUMS with assets currently worth Rs. 1.00 Billion.

A principal use of the earnings from the Gurmani Endowment will be to assist the poorest and most deserving students, especially those from the remote areas of Pakistan, through financial assistance initiatives such as the LUMS National Outreach Programme (NOP). In addition, the Endowment earnings will also be used for scholarly Fellowships, Prizes and other projects that correspond to the University mission and the Gurmani Foundation goals of promoting research, education and training.

A more formal launching ceremony for the Endowment Fund will be held later this year. Meanwhile, the two daughters of the late Nawab Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani (1905-1981) – Begum Abida Aminullah and Begum Khalida Ghazanfar – were present to sign the agreement.

Both commented that the spirit of the Endowment embodies the passions that defined their father: a thirst for knowledge, a belief in the benefits of good education, and a deeply felt desire to assist those in greatest need and of greatest merit. Rabia Sultan, a member of the Gurmani Foundation Board added that “as a grandchild I am sure that our grandfather would be as happy and satisfied as we all are today.”

The Gurmani Foundation is a philanthropic organisation that caters to the promotion and welfare of the community at large and has been actively involved in funding institutions geared at imparting knowledge and other culturally inclined endeavours.